The Desire to Perpetuate the Purity of Children

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In The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss wrote, “When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.” Children live in a world full of innocence, ignorance, and bliss. They are not affected by the corruption of the world; therefore, naiveté is preserved. In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, innocence is shown through the pond and Holden’s desire for being a “catcher in the rye”; through Phoebe, Allie, and Sunny for their adolescence; and through the carrousel and the Museum of Natural History for their conservation. In the novel, Holden Caulfield establishes the theme of preserving innocence because of his loathing for deceptive people.
Preventing and protecting children from enduring adulthood demonstrates this innocence through the pond and Holden’s desire for being a “catcher in the rye”. When Holden questions Horwitz about the ducks, Horwitz replies, “…the fish… live right in the goddam ice. They get frozen right in one position… Their bodies take in nutrition and all, right through the goddam seaweed and crap that’s in the ice. They got their pores open the whole time” (75). The freezing pond resembles moral progeny. Their mortality is perpetuated, because they are frozen into place. The fish represent Holden for his preservation on naiveté, because he is stuck in the pond of purity for loathing fraudulent people. Being fastened in a pond of pureness relates to being saved from adulthood by maintaining the mortality of children. While Phoebe and Holden have a conversation about what Holden likes, he remarks, “… I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean...

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...too much. Everything is about sex... But I don’t think it should be everywhere, where kids are exposed to everything sexual. Because they have to have some innocence; there’s just no innocence left.” Children are being shown and taught the things that they should not be learning about. They are virtuous pupils who need to learn the good things in life, not the terrible things. There are being exposed to the cruelties in life rather than being protected from them. Children need to enjoy the life they have now, while they still have their naiveté; because, being pure allows one to become who they are. They are not dishonest, but they choose to have integrity. No matter how many times innocence is preserved, it will most likely be lost by the corruption and cruelties of the world. Therefore, children should be protected from the evils of the world.

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