Catcher In The Rye Innocence Quotes

This semester, I read the book The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. This is a stunning book about a teenager named Holden Caulfield who has gotten kicked out of prep school after prep school, and after being kicked out of his current school, he tries to avoid making contact with his parents so they don’t find out that he flunked out of school. He has days of self-reflection and thinking while wandering the streets, going to countless bars, and meeting up with people from his past. He remembers different people that he met in his life and different things that he liked. He also thinks a lot about all the things and people in his world who are phony. He decides that, after he sees his sister Phoebe, he will leave New York and never come
Throughout the book, it is shown that Holden really dislikes people who pretend to be something that they aren’t, or in his words, “phony”. These types of people were all over at his prep schools, so he really has to learn to focus more on the things that make him happy. It is shown throughout the book that he really likes people who are honest or genuine, as well as small children who still had their innocence. This is portrayed in the quote, “I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was damn near bawling, I was so damn happy if you want to know the truth. It was just she looked so damn nice going around and around in her blue coat.”(213). This shows that he really likes how nice and innocent his sister looked while she was going around the carousel; he liked that she was feeling the happiness of childhood. He also really disliked when people were mistreated in his schools. This all shows that the theme of this book was the loss of innocence in adolescence and the importance of being genuine and not mistreating
self conflict that Holden feels more towards the end of the book. On the day that he had planned to leave, he wants to see his sister, Phoebe, one last time, so they meet up to talk after her school gets out. When she arrives, she carries with her a bag with her clothes in it and insists that if Holden leaves, she is going with him. Holden has an internal struggle as to what he should do. He knows that he can’t take her with him, but he still wants to be with her. After thinking it over and talking with Phoebe, he decides to stay and live with his family. This is shown in the scene, “She kept hanging around. ‘Did you mean it what you said? You aren’t really going anywhere? Are you really going home afterwards?’ she asked me. ‘Yeah,’ I said. And I meant it too. I wasn’t lying to her. I really did go home afterwards.”(212). This shows that, although he didn’t like the kind of life that he would have to live if he stayed, he realises that he can’t abandon his family. This inner conflict was built up for a very long time, but in the last few pages of the book, it was at its