Innocence Compassion and some Crazy Cliff
A novel, which has gained literary recognition worldwide, scrutiny to the point of censorship and has established a following among adolescents, The Catcher in the Rye is in its entirety a unique connotation of the preservation of innocence and the pursuit of compassion. With certain elegance the writer J.D. Salinger, substantiates the growth and perils, which lie between childhood and adulthood. Embellishing the differentiation between innocence and squalor in the grasps of society. The bridge that lies between these contrasting themes are personified through the novel's protagonist, Holden Caul-field and his visualization of a cliff, which depicts a dividing point between the evident beginning and end. The connection, which binds this gap in reality, was made clear through a new found compassion, consummating Holden's place in society through the realization of his surroundings from which he successfully crosses over. Focusing on the rebellious and confused actuality of adolescents stuck between the innocence of childhood and the corruptness of the adult world, this novel strikes a cord, which most adolescents can relate. The essence of the story The Catcher in the Rye follows the forty-eight hour escapade of sixteen-
"Holden's difficulties affect his nervous system but never his vision. It is the vision of an innocent. To the lifeline of this vision he clings invinci-bly, as he does to a phonograph record he buys for Phoebe (till it breaks) and a red hunting cap that is dear to him and that he finally gives to Phoebe, and to Allie's baseball glove." Understanding Holden's notion of innocence and the role it plays throughout the novel helps to put in tune the underlying message found in Holden's description of the catcher in the rye. "I keep picturing 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." (Pg. 173) The princi-ple of the catcher in the rye is a means for Holden to devote his life to the protection of innocence. The significance of the catcher image lies in three areas of thought as implied by B. Ramachandra Rao: Although much about his life is uncertain, it is clear that Salinger was born on January 1 1919 in New York, New York, the second child and only son of Sol and Miriam Salinger. Since much of Salinger's early days are clouded and unknown, the only link to his apparent adolescence is through the statement that his "boyhood was very much the same as that of the in the book [Holden]." Salinger attended public schools on Manhattan's upper West Side and during his high school years he transferred to the pri-vate McBurney School, where he flunked out after one year. In 1934, his father enrolled him at Valley Forge Military Academy, a private prep school in Pennsylvania. After graduation in 1936, Salinger enrolled in a short-story writing course at Columbia Univer-sity in New York and began publishing some of his short stories. Salinger was inducted into the service in 1942, at the age of twenty-three, the following year, he was transferred to the Counter-Intelligence Corps and later joined the American Forth Division, he landed on Utah Beach five hours after the initial assault on
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1569
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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