Holden Caulfield and the idea of innocence
Holden Caulfield dislikes a lot of people, and deeply likes a select few. But how does he choose which people make it into which group? I believe he judges people based on their perceived innocence. For example, he dislikes Stradlater because he knows that guy sucks, he's a real piece of work, and believes he can do anything he wants to any woman he wants. He doesn't like that at all, especially when it involves Jane. He perceives her as one of the more innocent people he knows, even though he hasn't actually interacted with her in a while. He wants her to be like how she was back in Maine at their vacation homes, but he doesn't even know if that is what she's actually like now. He is preserving the memory of her innocence, the little things about her that make him actually like her, like keeping her kings in the back row in checkers. The same can be said about the kids he meets after leaving Pencey. The kid singing that he sees is an example of innocence he sees and actually enjoys. His sister is another person he seems to want to preserve the innocence of, even though he knows she is growing up and becoming her own person. He keeps these memories of innocence from the past to dictate his feelings towards people now.
There is one example that really stands out to me though, and that's Allie. Allie's innocence is and always will be preserved, in the past, in Holden's memories. The story of the baseball glove he wrote really shows us that Holden thinks fondly of even the small things in his life connected to Allie, and as we go on in the book these small little things that Holden enjoys about people keep coming up in his head. He appreciates the finer details in his life. He doesn't necessarily want to be like all the other guys at his prep schools that he's met, and to be honest he thinks most of them aren't that great. I enjoy Holden's idea of innocence, and how it should be preserved as long as he can, because it makes everything else around him seem less bad if he has these memories to look back on.
Great Post! I completely agree with your assessment on Holden's view of innocence. This is also shown when he is unable to bring himself to call Jane, and ultimately he 'preserves' her innocence by calling someone he knows less. In this way he can maintain Jane's image as an innocent person in his head. Another point where his innocence occurs is in his final 'dream' where he wants to catch kids from falling into a ravine. Wanting to send kids back to play in the field could be viewed as an attempt to preserve innocence.
ReplyDeleteGreetings and salutations Knox. Great post! I like your interpretation of Holden's obsession with innocence. And I like your point about Holden idolizing old memories of people, which is why he holds Allie in such high esteem. Since Allie is now dead and can never change, Holden's perception of him also gets to remain the same, which I feel like gives him a sense of comfort.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that Holden tends to like people based on their closeness to childhood and innocence. Another example of this might be how he immediately likes the nuns who are abstinent and devote their lives to generally being nice. I do feel like there are some outliers, like that one teacher who's house he stayed at, who he liked before he got weird.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Holden places great emphasis on the idea of innocence. I think this can be tied into his idea of putting things in "big glass cases" and his interest in the preservative methods used in Ancient Egypt- he has become obsessed with the notion of stasis, as exemplified by, as you point out, the figure of Allie, who cannot change.
ReplyDeleteAll great examples of Holden's "ideal models" of what he means by innocence. I would propose some even stronger connections between Jane and her kings in the back row and Allie and his poem-riddled mitt. Jane keeping her kings all lined up in the back row is a terrible checkers strategy--she literally refuses to actually use her most powerful pieces on the board. But she doesn't care--she "just likes the way they look" all lined up in the back. In a way that Holden has to admire, she doesn't care about winning the game or even playing according to the rules. (Remember Stradlater complaining that Holden doesn't do anything the way he's supposed to, or Spencer telling him life is a game, to be played by the rules.)
ReplyDeleteLikewise, good old Allie, on the baseball field, is more concerned with having some good Emily Dickinson to read than being able to catch a fly ball. We don't get the impression that Allie was a particularly good outfielder--I always imagine him as that kid who they all need to yell at when the ball is coming at him because he's not paying attention, busy rereading "I heard a fly buzz when I died" in the outfield.
The common denominator--a key ideal of Holden's--is that they don't play the game to win. They privilege the aesthetics and poetry over the game being played by the rules.