Innocence In Catcher In The Rye

Innocence in The Catcher in the Rye Not too many people in this world can be labeled as truly innocent. Nowadays, there is always something wrong with people. Some try to keep their innocence; however, innocence cannot be kept. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield does not want to realize that everyone has to grow up. J.D. Salinger writes a beautiful novel by using several literary and rhetorical devices to convey the theme of innocence.
For example, Holden wants to stay young and never grow up. He knows that the adult life is full pain and sorrow. Although Holden may physically seem like an adult, he knows that he still acts like a child. He employs the use of a metaphor when he states that all he wants to be is a “catcher in the rye”(Salinger 173) Holden wants to be the only elder figure in this field of rye and be there to catch kids if they fall. He wants to protect these children from becoming adults. Adulthood is when a person loses their innocence, Holden wants to be there to keep the innocence within the children because he knows how awful it is to be an adult.
In addition, everywhere Holden went, there was always something that ruined it and removed the innocence from it. Too often it seemed as if Holden was in “a futile battle against the encroaching concerns—and corruptions—of the adult world” (Everson 8). There
were times where all Holden wanted to do was find some peace, however, everywhere he went there was something that ruined it. For example, when he went to his previous school to wait for Phoebe he saw that there was some vulgar writings on the wall. When he saw it, he was extremely disturbed and tried to erase it. He knew that the school was an innocent place, and he wanted to keep it that way. After trying to erase it, he noticed that it was carved on the wall and that made him feel upset. It drove him “damn near crazy”(Salinger 201). He could not protect the place to keep it innocent. When Holden saw it, he knew that the children would wonder what it meant and that once they knew they would no longer be innocent.
Furthermore, the red hunting hat Holden wears symbolizes his individualism.
He wears the hat to be different from everyone. Whenever he wears the hat he has benevolent childhood memories and it is not something an adult would wear. It keeps him calm and gives him a sense that he is innocent when he wears it. The hat “can be seen as a badge of Holden's deliberate non-conformity”. He wears the hat to stand out as an individual and he is seen as innocent. In addition, Holden wears the hat in a backwards manner, the same way a catcher wears their hat in baseball. This foreshadows that Holden desires to be “the catcher” in the rye (Alsen
17)
Moreover, there is conflict in Holden’s transition from his teenage years to adulthood. Holden wants to skip town and “get a job at a filling station somewhere”(Salinger 198). Just like a child, Holden literally wanted to run away from his problems, the only thing he was going to do was say goodbye to his younger sister, Phoebe. As he is with her, she tells Holden that she wants to go with him, she even packed her bags. Admittedly, Holden then has an epiphany and realizes that he cannot leave. He has to grow up and face the consequences of him getting kicked out of school again. However, he still wants to preserve the innocence in Phoebe, but in doing so he realizes then that not everyone can remain innocent.
Additionally, Holden is socially distinct because he does not speak the way average teenagers speak. Most of the times Holden talks on how people can be so “phony” and he despises wanting to grow up. What Holden fails to realize it that growing up can be an amazing thing to happen to a person. Holden believes that the only innocent people in this world are children, and the only way to remain innocent is to never grow up. "The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one."(Salinger 188). This shows that it would be immature for Holden to die for one specific cause.
Another example of how innocence is portrayed is when Holden has the encounter with the prostitute. Holden admits to thinking about sex, like most adolescents, he says that he is “probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw”(Salinger 62). However, when it came time to actually have sex with someone, he could not do it. The prostitute was young, looked about Holden's age, and that was all Holden could think about, He was truly innocent at that point, whereas most young men would have just had sex. Also, when Holden reminisces the times he had with Jane, he hardly ever talks about having sex with her. He sees woman as more than just an object, and he wants to have an intimate relationship with someone before they have sex.