Free Essays - No Innocence in Catcher in the Rye :: Catcher Rye Essays

No Innocence in Catcher in the Rye Probably the greatest irony of the novel is the fact that, despite his love of "childhood innocence," Holden is and acts far from innocent himself. In fact, he is its antithesis. He acts that way for many reasons. First of all, he has so many responsibilities. Second, he never fits in with the crowd, and finally, he never gets any real help for the problems that he deals with. Holden does have a love for "childhood innocence" as seen across the book. For example, on page two hundred and one "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, and how they'd wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them-cockeyed naturally- what it meant, and how they'd all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days. I kept wanting to kill whoever'd written it... But I rubbed it [The 'fuck you' written on the wall] out anyway." Another example is on page two hundred and eight, "'So shut up.' It was the first time she [Phoebe] ever told me to shut up. It sounded terrible. God, it sounded terrible. It sounded worse than swearing." There is one more outstanding quotation from the novel which is found on page two hundred and thirteen. "I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe was going around and around [the carousel]." All these examples clearly show that Holden appreciated "childhood innocence" to a great extent. Yet Holden acts the opposite. The irony in this novel is Holden's behavior, which is far from being innocent. He smokes, drinks, always depressed, thinks about suicide, thinks about going embarking to a far place, and has people tell and act in many weird ways. There are three main reasons why he acts this way. Firstly, Holden being only sixteen years of age already has so much responsibility. He has to get money for food and travel. When he travels he has to make sure he doesn't get lost, and actually gets there. He has to make sure that he doesn't flunk school.