Holden Caulfield; a man of faith

In Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden, places his faith in the fact that all children will fall from the innocence of childhood, into the worldly and imperfect adults whom he sees as the product of the corruption of time.

Holden believes in a state of adolescence and innocence as the ideal state for a human being. This is very obvious throughout the book, and is strongly enforced by the “catcher” motif. Many times Holden talks about thing that do not change as places he likes demonstrating his love for the changeless. Holden values this changelessness because with it he can maintain the innocence the he so wishes to preserve. In particular he likes the museum whose displays never change. Holden also places vast faith in the protective value of various enclosures whether it is the theatre in the museum, the porch that he sits on during the rain with Jane, or the hunting hat that he always wears.

Holden places his faith in the corruptive powers of worldly forces much like Catholics do. He believes that the wants and desires of this world, in all of its imperfection perverts the innocent children until they are dead in their ways of goodness, and no nothing but the corruption of evil that Holden so wants to prevent with his stoppage of time. In Holden’s eyes, the passage of time symbolizes the destruction of the innocence he wants to preserve, and the fall toward adulthood that he wishes to prevent. The book shows that his faith in this system is unshakeable.

Although the system that Holden has his faith in is, to him originally wrong and evil, the reader is made to feel that this belief is wrong. We are not led to believe that Holden is placing his faith in the wrong system, he is simply wrong about the results of the experience that time and the world, and all of its beauty brings to the human’s understanding of self, and right and wrong.

Holden is, throughout the novel, led toward the truth which is so plain to the reader. He is not made to lose his faith in the system of maturation, but simply to change his views on what it is. After all did not the earliest worshippers of God believe him to be an angry God who would punish and take vengeance even on those who would not necessarily be at fault fro their own sins to one of a benevolent and personal God concerned with the love between Himself and his people as well as their salvation?

As Holden grows in his new belief of the faith that he had all along, he is drawn fro the darkness of his sheltered and dead world full of stagnation and death into a new one of new life and growth. This is displayed slowly as he falls into the lake symbolizing that he had hit rock bottom. It was in the middle of the night. He then move on to his teacher’s house where he moves closer to the light of the next morning and the new light that the dawn would shed on his life. From here he goes back to his old school to tell his sister to meet him so that he can tell her of his plans to leave. When he finally meets his little sister at the appointed time, and place he sees that she has brought along her things so that she can go along with him in his travels. This coming of his sister Phoebe is the dawning of the sun on his new way of life. (Phoebus the Roman sun god shares a similar name with Phoebe) Phoebe comes ready to travel because it is in her character to spread out and gain experience, and in seeing this, Holden realizes that he cannot move about and bring his little sister who is not yet even out of grade school. Holden instead takes her back home where he can keep her safe. One would think this to be a regression toward the shelter of home, and the darkness of a shelter: protection from the corruptive forces of the world. That is not so however for it is a movement toward the proper order of things. Once there, Holden sees that Phoebe has spread out o fill the place of his and her older brother. Seeing this he finally comes to the conclusion that it is not the growing up that should be stopped, and that is made evil by the earth, but the ignorance and naivety that are brought about by the innocence of childhood. While Holden realizes that innocence is not to be purposefully destroyed, it should not be left to stagnate in the void of time, and that growth is the result of the resistance to the perversion that is in the world.

In conclusion, Holden has very great faith that leads him to leaving his school, roving the streets of New York alone, and that he would consider completely leaving everything he knows. This faith is also what allows him to make such a profound turn away from his incorrect way of thinking to an enlightened view of the great faith that he already possessed.