The catcher in the rye - Research Paper Example

After an emotive nosedive emphasized by Pencey Prep expulsion, Caulfield checks the Edmont Hotel and meanders the vicinities of Manhattan for 3 days. However, as Caulfield’s adventure progresses, he gradually begins bridging the gap between childhood innocence and the adulthood onset. The second last chapter of the novel follows Caulfield as a few significant occasions add to his advantage of personal closure concerning the loss of virtuousness between childhood and adulthood, a universal theme of the book.

Caulfield’s walk on 5th Avenue at the beginning of the chapter signifies his many struggles related to his journey to adulthood throughout the book (Gohn 44). Caulfield literally aims at "catching" the children as they fall into adulthood. Caulfield, like any other teenager, stays scared of growing up. He understands that no one stands at the bottom of this metaphorical face with open arms to hold him as he tumbles, and that frightens him more than anything in his life. This fear of the cliff edge pushes Caulfield to walk on the streak between adulthood and childhood without committing to either flank, paralleling his sprints from one block to another (Sanford Pinsker 112).

Additionally, Holden adheres to one of his only thoughts that he will ever find consoling for strength - his brother’s, (Allie) memory. As he runs, he "make[s] believes that he talks to his brother" (Salinger 257), and appreciates him when he crosses by the street securely. In a logic, Caulfield views Allie as his catcher on the bottom end of the cliff. He holds Allie's catcher's hand with him at every time, and it is apparent that Allie's death affected and infected him in an irreversible way that made it extremely hard for him to progress in his life.

While he reflects to the past, Caulfield’s course of growing up turns out to be stunted. He calls out for Allie's memory to protect him from harms not only as he strolls along the streets in New York but when he rambles through his life. Without guides and uncertain, Caulfield never takes his time to cement precisely what he wants in life and consequently becomes trapped in the midpoint of adolescence. Convoying the discovery of smudged atrocities on his sister Phoebe's school, Caulfield begins to understand that individual’s loss of innocence remains` irresistible.

He contemplates of how every child at the school could see the graffiti and, owing that he is young and innocent, he do not know what it implied. The thought drives him "near crazy" (Salinger 260). Caulfield discovers the fact that the communications written in school for children disturbing, wishing it could be possible that Phoebe with her friends could exist unpolluted by such rudimentary messages. In Caulfield’s views, young children like Phoebe signify everything that is pure and real about life, finding consolation in visiting Phoebe within earlier chapters.

He despises the thought that their blamelessness will inevitably disappear one time. After seeing some more items of graffiti, Caulfield comments that "if you could get a million years of doing it in, you could not rub out even a half the "dirty" cryptograms in the world. It is practically impossible" (Salinger 262). Caulfield finally has his own epiphany - he understands that loss of innocence in children is unstoppable. Society is so corrupt for there to occur a utopian,