Throughout this novel many themes appeared in The Cather in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger, a story about a 17-year-old boy who deals with constant heartache and tries to find himself. Unfortunately it takes many hardships to really figure out why everything happens in his life. The three main themes that occurred throughout this novel are the phonies of the world, childhood innocence, and mortality. These themes really give an idea of why the main character is who he is. Holden the main character throughout the novel relied on the fact that every single person he had met was a complete phony.
As Holden is talking to Mr. Spencer he really started to get into why he really dropped out of his two other schools. For example, “One of the biggest reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded by phonies. That’s all. They were coming in the goddam window. ” (Salinger 17) This shows that during this time is when Holden really started to use the word phony. In addition, he accused everyone of being one. Holden continues to go on throughout the book about his life and, the more people he met, the more phonies he started to know.
Holden’s character really started to show, and it showed he was a very judgmental person. For instance, “At the end of the first act we went out with all the other jerks for a cigarette. What a deal that was. You never saw so many phonies in all your life, everybody smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they were. ” (Salinger 134) This is because Holden finds it hilarious that all these phonies are trying to impress each other but they clearly don’t impress him.
I learned by calling everyone a phony almost makes you a phony, I also learned you cant be judgmental of everyone. Holden is really affected by the thought of childhood innocence. As Holden goes through the book he realizes he doesn’t have much childhood innocence left. For example, “Hey how old are you anyways? ” “Me? Twenty-two. ” “Like fun you are. “It was a funny thing to say. It sounded like a real kid. You’d think a prostitute and all would say, “Like hell you are” or “Cut the crap” instead of “Like fun you are. (Salinger 105,106) This shows Holden notices that ironically sunny the prostitute still has some innocence left. In addition, this really affects him, how can someone so young act this way. Younger children really got to Holden. They were so young and had so much ahead of them. For instance, “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’s would still be drinking out of that water hole. (Salinger 135) This shows that Holden wishes he didn’t have to grow up. He continually looses his childhood innocence everyday. The life lesson I concluded from this theme is that eventually we all have to grow and just because are childhood goes doesn’t mean our innocence does. Holden has to deal with the mortality of his younger brother throughout the book. Holden wasn’t really into talking but he always had an excuse for something because of Allie. He was a very lonesome person all because of the death he had to deal with as a young child.
For example, “He got leukemia and died when we were up in Maine, on July 18, 1946. You’d have liked him. He was two years younger than I was, but he was about fifty times as intelligent. He was terrifically intelligent. His teachers were always writing letters to my mother, telling her what a pleasure it was having a boy like Allie in their class. And they weren’t just shooting the crap. They really meant it. But it wasn’t just that he was the most intelligent member in the family.
He was also the nicest, in lots of ways. (Salinger Chp 5) This shows he loved Allie and spoke very highly of him and questions why something like this could happen to someone so amazing. In addition, Holden would always bring the death of Allie up or something about death; he never had anything positive to say. For instance, “Finally I sat down on this bench, where it wasn’t so goddam dark. Boy, I was still shivering like a bastard, and the back of my hair, even though I had my hunting hat on, was sort of full of little hunks of ice. That worried me.
I thought probably I’d get pneumonia and die. I started picturing millions of jerks coming to my funeral and all. ” (Salinger chp 20) This shows that since Allie died he wishes upon a death wish and he really doesn’t know how to confront the situation. Mortality will always be a hard thing to deal with but I learned that the way Holden dealt with it was not the correct way. The three main themes that occurred throughout this novel such as, the phonies of the world, childhood innocence, and mortality really appeared throughout.
The hardships Holden has to face, as a 17-year-old boy was unimaginable. The death of a sibling and being sent to boarding school with no one to talk to except “phonies” couldn’t be easy. As Holden goes through the book he becomes more and more unstable and starts t realize the hardships of growing up. Nothing he hates more then how fast he lost his childhood innocence and hopes that other children can hold on to it. Unfortunately he needs to deal with the death of Allie the correct way and the only way, which is to find closure in him.