Innocence In Catcher In The Rye, By J. D. Salinger

Innocence is a term defined as lack of guile or corruption; purity. Experience can be defined as practical contact with and observation of facts or events. In many works of American literature there are prominent themes such as innocence and experience. Dealing with the loss of innocence and how a characters past experiences affect the plot are consistently major themes within many works of literature. Throughout American literature the idea of innocence and experience is prominent and it can give depth to the meaning of a work of literature as a whole. The idea of innocence throughout J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye is heavily prominent. After being kicked out of his prep school, Holden Caulfield decides to spend a couple of nights …show more content…
In the play a girl named Abigail starts to call out women and men for being devil worshipers and witches in order to avoid getting in trouble herself. This triggers a series of events that leads to trails of innocent women and their eventual death or imprisonment. John Proctor has an affair with Abigail, causing Abigail to be harsh and make rash decisions when Proctor will not reciprocate her love. The trials and deaths could have been prevented if it were not for the lie that Elizabeth, John’s wife, had told to the court. The court, Abigail, and the bystanders that played along are all part of the guilty that caused the countless deaths in the salem witch …show more content…
The tradition seems to have been started generations before the characters in the story, as they blindly accept what is going on with no second thought at all. Throughout the story the kids are collecting rocks, people are wary of the stones in the corner, and everyone in the crowd is anxious. This sets up the mood of the story without explaining with the lottery is even about. In the story the Hutchinson family draws the black dot, meaning that someone in their nuclear family will die as we find out near the end. Tess is the one who draws the wrong piece of paper and is stoned to death by her friends and community. The characters in the story like to think that they are innocent, as this has been tradition but in reality they all have taken part in this murder and thus are