Holden Caulfield Innocence

Imagine a place like Neverland in the Disney movie Peter Pan;a place where children can go to escape the inevitable chapter of life that is adulthood and they never have to grow up. Many teenagers in the world today wish they could have an escape like this. Some may say that adulthood is not a downward slope, but more like an instantaneous drop, much like Holden believes in The Catcher in the Rye. In this novel, Holden aspires to the a “catcher in the rye”.

Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield expresses his hatred for grownups, adulthood, and losing his innocence. The title of the novel reflects Holden’s need for innocence. A catcher in the rye is a symbol for saving childhood and innocence. He wants to be the ‘catcher’ for childhood who go too close to the edge of adulthood and fall off the metaphorical cliff of childhood. He believes that children should be able to enjoy their youth, because it won’t last forever. That’s why he tells Phoebe to grab the golden ring on the carousel. Holden says, “...The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it is bad to say anything to them.”. This quote helps explain the claim

that Holden wants to capture childhood. He would never tell Phoebe to not grab the gold ring, because that would be taking away a piece of her childhood and innocence. Phoebe is probably the most important person in Holden’s life and one of the few people that Holden enjoys being with.
Another instance in which Holden tries to be the “catcher in the rye” and protect innocence is with Jane Gallagher. Jane was one of Holden’s best childhood friends. When he remembers the time that himself and Jane were playing checkers, he describes the incident with Jane’s stepfather (the possible sexual advances) and how he tried to protect Jane because he didn’t want her to see what the adult ‘world’ entails. He specially tells the reader that he and Jane never had a sexual relationship. This wasn’t done by accident. J.D. Salinger purposefully put that point in the book because he wanted the reader to know that Holden never, and probably will never, think of Jane as anything other than his childhood friend. Because Holden thinks of Jane this way, he gets agitated with Stradlater for being with her in a parked car late at night, making Jane late for her curfew. He gets so mad at this because he can’t stand the thought of Jane growing up.
Why does Holden feel the need to protect innocence?

The answer can be quite simple: Allie. Allie died when Holden was 13. Allie died of leukemia on July 18, 1946. His death was traumatic to Holden, because Allie was so young when he died. Holden probably wants to be a ‘catcher in the rye’ because Allie. He doesn’t think that children should have to experience the things that Allie did, and he thinks it’s unfair that Allie wasn’t able to have a fulfilling childhood because of his illness. Allie was one of the only people that Holden truly loved and was passionate about, which he why he wrote the essay on Allie’s baseball glove. He misses Allie and for some reason, feels guilty that Allie never got to experience the things that he

has.
In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden dreams of innocence and purity for children. The book’s title reflects what Holden wants to be, a ‘catcher in the rye’; someone that protects children from the drop to adulthood. Throughout the novel, Holden gives several signs of trying to protect and preserving innocence in the people that mean the most important to him. A question that the reader is left with after finishing the novel is: Does Holden try to protect innocence in the people that mean the most to him, or do these people mean the most to him because their innocence is already preserved within Holden?