Catcher in the rye preserving Holden's innocents
Tristan cole
Scott Wilyman
ENG3U-01
2013 DEC 27
Catcher in the Rye Essay
“The Catcher in the Rye”, written by Jerome David Salinger, depicts Holden Caulfeild is a sensitive and alienated sixteen-year-old boy living in a society that he believes is a superficial, hypocrisy or ‘phony’. He associates this ‘phoniness’ with everything corresponding to the adult world, things ranging from lawyers to sexual intercourse. However, Holden never states that he is afraid of growing up, it is made evident by his unwillingness to mature. Instead he expresses his resistance to becoming an adult by fabricating the adult world into a place of ‘phony’, dishonest and shallow people, in comparison to the honest, innocent and ideal world that the children live in. Throughout the novel Holden attempts immensely to try and preserve the innocence in both him, and everyone he comes in contact with. He believes that the adults have already taken the path leading to ‘phoniness’ evidently; he tries to save children from this fate, he describes it to be “all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.” (22.51-55) Holden pictures a luscious field with blooming rye, in which children romp and play whereas, adulthood is equivalent to the death of a child, represented by a fatal fall over the edge of a cliff. During a conversation between Holden and his sister Phoebe, Phoebe asks what Holden would like to do with his life, Holden disregards the question as he begins to segue to
Scott Wilyman
ENG3U-01
2013 DEC 27
Catcher in the Rye Essay
“The Catcher in the Rye”, written by Jerome David Salinger, depicts Holden Caulfeild is a sensitive and alienated sixteen-year-old boy living in a society that he believes is a superficial, hypocrisy or ‘phony’. He associates this ‘phoniness’ with everything corresponding to the adult world, things ranging from lawyers to sexual intercourse. However, Holden never states that he is afraid of growing up, it is made evident by his unwillingness to mature. Instead he expresses his resistance to becoming an adult by fabricating the adult world into a place of ‘phony’, dishonest and shallow people, in comparison to the honest, innocent and ideal world that the children live in. Throughout the novel Holden attempts immensely to try and preserve the innocence in both him, and everyone he comes in contact with. He believes that the adults have already taken the path leading to ‘phoniness’ evidently; he tries to save children from this fate, he describes it to be “all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.” (22.51-55) Holden pictures a luscious field with blooming rye, in which children romp and play whereas, adulthood is equivalent to the death of a child, represented by a fatal fall over the edge of a cliff. During a conversation between Holden and his sister Phoebe, Phoebe asks what Holden would like to do with his life, Holden disregards the question as he begins to segue to