How Does Holden Lose The Innocence Of Children

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Lillian Angu
6/8/16
American Literature 11 / Period 1
Mrs. Lagomarsino
Innocence of children The Catcher in the rye is about a boy named Holden Caulfield who believed in the innocence of children and would do anything to protect it. Holden has a younger sister(Phoebe), a younger brother(Allie) who died of leukemia, and an older brother(DB) who is a writer in Hollywood. Holden has a unique and different personality; he finds himself lonely and depressed most of the time. Holden is always moving from school to school and the last school he is at in the novel is Pencey Prep. At Pencey Prep, Holden is bullied a lot; he does not like the school much and eventually he gets kicked out of the school for failing. Holden believes that all adults in the world are corrupt and phony. Throughout the novel, he tries to protect children from falling into the adult world. Holden himself is afraid of growing up because he thinks if he becomes an adult, he is going to lose his …show more content…
According to Jonathan Baumbach, “What he wants, in effect, is to be a saint, the protector and savior of innocence” (134). What Holden wants in life is to protect the innocence of children and catch them from falling. Holden believes the world is corrupt and full of phony people and he does not want children to live in such a world; he wants a perfect world where nothing ever changes and people stay innocent forever. In the novel on page 201, Holden says, “Somebody’d written “Fuck you” on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it…”. Holden sees “Fuck you” written on a wall at Phoebe’s school and also at the museum. He gets angry and tries to remove it because he does not want the children to see it, become exposed to the profanities of the world and lose their innocence. At the end of the novel, Holden realizes that he can’t protect all
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