The most precious time in a person's life is their childhood. A carefree attitude towards life and a great sense of innocence evolve and the yearning to remain a child forever develops. Childhood is the time when you set all your troubles aside, pay no bills, have no homework and don't worry that every action you take will upset your parents. As you mature into adulthood your innocence is lost and sometimes a wall of phoniness builds itself around you. In JD Salingers' Catcher in the Rye, a troubled teenager named Holden Caulfield struggles with the fact that everyone has to grow up. The book gets its title from Holden's constant concern with the loss of innocence. He does not want children to grow up because he feels that adults are corrupt and he himself does not want to grow up for the sake of preserving his innocence. But in the end, Holden realizes that he has no choice and must learn to let go and grow up.
In the beginning of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden's initial character is that of a child. He is extremely immature and cannot buckle down in school and it shows with his failing grades. Because of his lack of responsibility throughout the whole book he also fails out of two school
Holden's deep concern with perfection causes him to create stereotypes. When Holden goes to Phoebe's school he finds cuss words written on the walls in the hallways. His imagination leads him to believe that some pervert snuck into the school to write the vulgarity and does it to try and corrupt the children. Holden does not want to grow up and put himself into the same class of people that are trying to make children dishonest. Holden tries very hard to erase the graffiti because he believes that children are innocent because they view the world and society without any bias. He wants to put himself in the same category as a child so his innocence is protected. Besides trying to erase cuss words, Holden uses the terms, becoming "a catcher in the rye" as an example of how he could save children from falling off the cliff to adulthood and loosing their innocence.
Holden's final display of change is when he does not ride the carrousel with Phoebe. Holden only watches her ride and try to grab the gold ring in the center of the carrousel. Instead of warning her that she might fall and get hurt, he decides to let her learn for herself. The carrousel is symbolizing life and the journey of childhood into adulthood. The more childish Holden would say it was too dangerous to achieve the goal of grabbing the gold ring, but he is more mature and decides that they need to go along the path by themselves.
s for lack of effort and absences from classes. Another way that Holden shows irresponsibility is when he is the e
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