The Catcher in the Rye: Innocence and the Cliff Malynda W. J.D. Salinger and WWII The Catcher in the Rye is a best-selling book that was never adapted into a movie. J.D Salinger’s work is timeless. He masterfully created relatable characters to tell an amazing story about growing up and life. The whole plot of the book is that Holden Caulfield, the main character, has just been expelled from a prestigious prep school and is traveling back home through New York.
However it is the language and character development that makes this book one of the best loved pieces of literature ever. Seven years before The Catcher in the Rye was published, J.D. Salinger had just returned from horrors that very few people, fortunately, ever face. In World War II, he was on Utah Beach on D-Day, he was also in the Battle of the Bulge and Hürtgen Forest, and he was one of the first to enter a liberated concentration camp. Therefore it is no wonder that his masterpiece, The Catcher in the Rye , is deeply concerned with the destruction of innocence and the cliff of adulthood and pain. The terrors that he saw caused him to realize what humans are capable of and why children need to be protected from it.
Innocence Deserves Protection Holden Caulfield, Salinger’s main protagonist seeks to be a “Catcher in the Rye”, catching children from plummeting off of the cliff into the corruption of adulthood. This fact that he believes to be true causes him to attempt talking to someone who listens to his fears about becoming an adult and losing his innocence. However, throughout the novel, he tries repeatedly to achieve this, but the only person who listens to him has ulterior motives. Holden believes that adulthood is the opposite of innocence, and that the two cannot exist together. He wants to stop time to keep himself and all who he cares about away from the phony and corrupt world that inevitably he believes will engulf everyone. The novel firmly believes that children deserve our protection. The novel uses many different metaphors to convey this. For example, when Holden is explaining the composition that he wrote for his roommate, he recalls the baseball glove that his brother, Allie, had. The quote below is a metaphor to show that innocence, the childish game of baseball and the innocent love of poetry, dies when the pain of adulthood, disease, occurs, Overall, the novel believes that the adult world corrupts the naive bliss of children, causing them to need Holden, their Catcher in the Rye. Holden embarks on the noble yet fruitless mission to save the innocent from hurtling off of the cliff of adulthood by stopping time.
“I wrote about my brother Allie's baseball mitt. It was a very descriptive subject. It really was. My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder's mitt. He was left-handed. The thing that was descriptive about it, though, was that he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them on it so that he'd have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up at bat. He's dead now. He got leukemia and died.”
Life is Change Only a few years before Salinger wrote this novel, Albert
Einstein discovered the theory of relativity. The accomplishment opened up new possibilities for time and stopping it. False hopes of going back in time were prominent in literature of the time. The Great Gatsby, for example, is another piece of classic literature that focuses on changing time. Holden wants to stop time and the transition from innocence into adulthood even though he cannot. The quote further explains Holden’s desire to stop time. He wants everything to stay the same, when, inevitably, life is change. Change is the only path possible for life. The beauty in life is that change is the only option to achieve true beauty. It is the journey that matters. That is what Salinger is trying to tell his readers. It is impossible to stop change. The Natural History Museum stays the same, unlike life, causing it to be a safe, frozen image into his innocence which he thinks has left him. Holden tries to seek truth by asking people who he meets along the way: old teachers, a cab driver, and a nun. None of these people ever answer his questions about time, life, and innocence. Death often represents change in this novel. For example, when Holden’s brother, Allie, dies, Holden cannot cope with it. He continues to think of Allie as
the innocent boy reading poems in the outfield instead of as something that can no longer love him to be with him, something that is dead. In addition, Jane Gallagher, Holden’s childhood neighbor, friend, and sweetheart, is used to portray Holden’s desire to dismiss that life is change. Holden chooses to think of her as a girl who is not good at checkers instead of a mature young woman. Holden consistently forgets that life is change. The denial that Holden feels is what eventually leads him to a madhouse.
“The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deer would still be drinking out of that water hole […]. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat on this time. Or that kid that was your partner in line last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way – I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it. “
It is Impossible
We know at the beginning of the novel that Holden is not in a normal situation. It is not until the conclusion of the novel that we are informed that Holden is in a madhouse. Holden’s consistent search for truth in life and preserving innocence cause an obsession that no one understands. This is the reason for one of the most famous quotes from the book, “People never notice anything.” Holden’s intense longing to achieve a hopelessly impossible mission is what leads him to insanity. His experience is used to show readers that it is hopeless to try to stop time. T i m e cannot be stopped. Innocence cannot be preserved. Life is change. Salinger is trying to say the only thing that can achieve peace is not possible. You will never be able to discover what you truly believe is important. Children have to “reach for the gold ring” on the carousel, even though they will fall off. It is not within the realms of reality to save children from hurt-
ling from the rye field of innocence into the cliff of adulthood and evil. Children will see horror, and there is no way we can stop it. War still goes on. Hate is prominent in the world. People die and people suffer. The world has terrible things in it that come when one loses their innocence. Trying to hard to stop the inevitable will result in the loss of sanity. People have to realize that they cannot save everyone. Holden never realizes this. He can try to win, but he never will achieve what he wants. Time and time again, Holden attempts to tell other people about his mission. No one ever understands this, which causes him to search inside himself for the impossible mission. The realization that he cannot do this causes him to lose all of reality.
“People never notice anything.”
“Then the carousel started, and I watched her go round and round...All the kids tried to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she's fall off the goddam horse, but I didn't say or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it is bad to say anything to them.”
There is Hope for Tomorrow
The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most iconic pieces of American literature because it addresses worries that are there for a reason. It discusses things that can never be achieved. Holden continues to be a beloved character because of his nobly impossible mission. Overall the message of The Catcher in the Rye is that innocence should be secured so that the reality of pain that comes from adulthood will not happen even though it must unless someone is willing to lose reality to achieve a goal that can not be achieved in reality. The novel is a cautionary
tale. It is meant to warn readers of what life is and how it cannot be severed from time. Searching for something that can never happen is a fruitless hope. Life and innocence is and forevermore will be the way that it is today, yesterday, and tomorrow. There is hope for tomorrow if people realize the truths that the novel screams. If you want to change time, realize that life will not change. What you do during your life is the only way to achieve peace.
“I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it.”
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