Theme 1: Childhood and Innocence
One of the themes of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ is the difficulties of making the transition from childhood to
adulthood. Holden Caulfield is what today we would term a teenager but at the time the novel was
written, in the late 1940s, the word ‘teenager’ had not been coined. Just because there was no word for
the stage, this does not mean that youths of the time did not face some of the same mental, emotional
and physical problems that teens today face. The reader can sympathise with Holden because we have
been through some of the emotional turmoil, self doubt, confusion and struggles to decide what we
believe in, just as the character of Holden does.
Holden is sixteen during most of the novel – a teenager. His difficulties in growing up, facing
responsibilities are what the novel is about. We are told that he continually ‘flunks’ exams, despite his
obvious intelligence, and his response to his problems is to ‘run away’, have an adventure like a child hero
in a children’s adventure story. Holden runs away from Pencey and has a two day adventure in New York,
the basis of the novel’s plot. He also fantasises about moving out West to a simpler lifestyle.
Holden’s happiest memories stem from his happy, privileged childhood before his brother Allie died.
When Allie died of leukaemia, Holden could not understand or come to terms with the cruelty and
injustice of this random event. From that time Holden’s childhood innocence has been lost and this is the
start of his problems:
‘I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell
of it.’
Holden’s response to grief is extreme as he can make no sense of why Allie, ‘the nicest’, should die. He
now perceives the world as a cruel place with no meaning.
Holden’s only happy time since Allie’s death is the times he spent with Jane Gallagher. Their relationship
was innocent: though they kissed he did not kiss her on the mouth. He delighted in her idiosyncratic way
of playing draughts, ‘keeping all her kings in the back row’. He fights with Stradlater because he fears
Stradlater may have taken Jane’s innocence, her virginity, and that she has moved on into the adult world
of sexual relationships:
‘trying not to think about old Jane and Stradlater in that goddam Ed Banky’s car.’
Throughout the novel Holden frequently decides to phone Jane yet never makes contact with her because
he is reluctant to face the fact she may have grown up. He does not want his innocent and happy
childhood memories of her shattered.
Holden’s innocence is seen clearly when he tries to act like an adult in adult company, hoping to impress
the adult world with his ideas of sophistication :
‘Would you care for a cocktail?’
Mrs. Morrow tactfully asks, ‘Dear, are you allowed to order drinks?’
He also invites taxi drivers to join him in a cocktail. This is how Holden thinks adults conduct social
interaction but the reader sees how inappropriate it is. He is shocked by the behaviour of some of the
guests in the hotel:
‘—that hotel was lousy with perverts---‘
Holden, despite his sophisticated veneer, is amazed by and condemns
the sexual exploits of the guests. He is also shown to be lacking worldly experience when he telephones a
young woman late at night asking for a date and when the three girls from Seattle leave him to pay their
drinks bill, despite Holden believing they are country hicks. We see New York as an unsuitable, uncaring
place for a boy to be on his own. Holden does not fit into the smart sophisticated adult world of
Manhattan, even when he tries. He is contrasted here by the prostitute, Sunny, who has far greater
sexual and worldly knowledge, although she is also sixteen, and who can take care of herself. Unlike
Holden she has already been corrupted by the world she inhabits.
Holden is more comfortable in the company of children and he is happiest in Central Park, at the
museums and zoo where nothing has changed since his childhood:
‘Certain things they should stay the way they are.’
Holden prefers the comfortable predictability of childhood which he finds reassuring, and takes refuge in
the nostalgia of his childhood. His memories are of an innocent time, yet instinctively he realises he
cannot turn back the clock. When he sets out to visit the museum he frequented as a child he:
‘-wouldn’t have gone inside for a million bucks.’
Holden knows he is in danger of being disillusioned, not because the museum may have changed, but
because he has. Holden can’t face up to the fact at this stage that he is growing up, whether he likes it or
not. He finds it ‘sort of depressing too’ thinking of the adult lives the teenage girls in the theatre will have.
He can only contemplate that their adult lives will be a disappointment of dull marriages.
His attention is drawn to a little boy singing in the street:
‘If a body catch a body coming through the rye’.
Holden enjoys the way the child is absorbed in his song and game, oblivious to his surroundings. Holden
envies his simple happiness in his game.
Phoebe, Holden’s ten year old sister, is the only one to whom Holden can really relate. He idolises her:
‘But she was listening at least.’
Through Phoebe Holden can relive his childhood as Phoebe attends the same school, frequents the same
places and does the same things. Finally he can tell someone who will listen about his worries. Even she
can spot something is wrong with Holden’s attitude to life:
‘You don’t like anything that’s happening’.
Holden is forced to think of a response and can only come up with:
‘That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.’
Here, in this metaphor, Holden wants to prevent children from growing up, from falling over the cliff, into
what he perceives as a corrupt, ‘phony’ world. The reader understands this is impossible and that Holden
has a genuine problem in making the transition to adulthood.
Holden’s over-protectiveness of childhood innocence is further shown by his shock and desire to rub out
all the ‘f*** yous’;
‘--- you couldn’t rub out even half the ‘f*** you signs in the world. It’s impossible.’
At least Holden is realising that children can’t be protected from every potentially corrupting influence.
He has a realisation at the end of the novel that children have to be allowed to take risks:
‘—if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything.’
Holden is watching Phoebe go round on the carrousel and resists the temptation to intervene because he
knows that the possibility of getting hurt is part of growing up. This is a breakthrough lesson for Holden.
However the reader wonders if it is fleeting as Holden becomes so happy watching Phoebe ‘going around
and around’ on the carrousel that he was ‘damn near bawling’. He appears happy in the childhood world,
in contrast to the adult world of his last two days. The reader sees that Phoebe is not progressing in a
direction but stuck in a moment of childhood, repeating itself.
When we return to the present, at the end of the novel, it is obvious that Holden has not managed to
straighten out his attitudes and ideas:
‘I don’t know what I think about it.’
The open ending leaves the reader wondering what is in store for Holden in the future. Will he finally
accept that growing up is necessary and that he must take steps to do so? Will he realise that people can’t
be protected all their lives?