Innocence in The Catcher in the Rye Essay

Innocence in the life of a child is as important to them as the very air that they breathe. When they are young, they only believe in the nave views that they have on the world, and will always follow the ideals that they were born with. The same ideas that give them a beautiful, pure, and peaceful mind set, that has not yet been tainted by the atrocities of mankind. We must do all we can in order to protect the loved ones and the children of our society so that they do not grow up repeating our own terrible mistakes.

I kept thinking about Jane, and about Stradlater having a date with her and all. It drove me crazy (34). This is Holdens great concern for one of his childhood friends, Jane Gallagher, being with his roommate at Pencey, Stradlater. The reason he thinks that is because he is the most sexually active person that he knows in the whole school. He shows so much anxiety for her because he knows that she has never had sex with a boy before, and he kept on imagining Jane being the back of a car with Stradlater, and he trying to put the moves on her. Jane means a lot to Holden because she was his childhood friend, and he has known her since he was a little kid and since she is a girl, he has always wanted to conserve her innocence. He believes that Stradlater will end up taking that away from her because of how sexually active he is. Although Holden took no risk and didnt bother to even go to see Jane, he was still worried about her losing her innocence with someone like his roommate.

I dropped old Phoebes record. It broke into about fifty pieces (154). The breaking of the record is meant to be symbolic of Phoebes innocence breaking at one point in her life, no matter how much Holden tries to stop it. Even though when he tells her this, she still takes it and keeps the pieces of the broken record, which shows the cycle of preserving, breaking, and saving innocence. Holden knows that Phoebe will one day grow old and eventually lose her innocence, but he wants to try his hardest to keep her from losing it at such an early point in her life. In the Carousel scene, Holden sees that Phoebe, like most of the children, is trying to reach for the golden ring, even though he knows that she is going to fall down and hurt herself; however, he comes to the realization that this is a fall she must take so that she can learn.

You cant ever find a place thats nice and peaceful, because there isnt any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when youre not looking, somebodyll sneak up and write Fuck you right under your nose (204). In the museum, Holden sees how some impudent people have ruined the permanence and beauty of the past times and innocence that was meant to be for children. He even claims that when he dies, somebody will do that to his tombstone at the cemetery. But he was more concerned about preserving the innocence of the children by marking out the slanderous filth written on the walls around him, and keeping them from being exposed to it in the first place. There have always been corruptive forces in the world, and Holden is trying to keep kids from being exposed to that, considering the aspect of innocence in children is dying very early. Parents who treat their kids with negligence, pass on their bad habits, and exhibit other improper acts around them will cause their children to grow up like them in the end, and lose their innocence so much earlier than necessary.

Innocence is important to the children of our society, because we do not want them growing up too quickly and turning into what we currently are today. The younger generation has our futures riding on their backs, and they simply cannot travel on our coattails, using us as leverage to get through life when they need to be able to handle their own situations. Therefore, they must be able to live as a child when they are a child, and live as an adult when they are an adult, and not before. It is important that we do all we can to make sure our children, and our childrens children if at all possible, keep their innocence and purity for as long as possible.