"Catcher in the Rye" written by J.D. Salinger is a novel in which the author creates much irony in the way he presents the loss of innocence or the fall from innocence in his main character, Holden Caulfield. While Holden clearly believes in protecting the innocence of children in society, he himself cannot seem to hang unto his own innocence. On the other hand, it is tough to say, however, whether Holden is merely an innocent child or not as sometimes his simplified view of the world shows the hint of children's innocence. Throughout the novel Holden shows his love and protection for childhood innocence, the irony that he in fact himself may be losing his own childhood innocence mainly due to the responsibilities which he has taken on, and also shows that he may be more innocent then the reader first thinks as his simplified view of a complex world is much like an innocent child would see.
             First of all, Holden strongly shows his extreme concern for the protection of children's innocence. This seems very ironic because of his own downfall through innocence but nonetheless Holden's actions prove his concerns are valid. Holden first shows this while he is at school. He notices that someone had written obscene language on the school wall and he vividly describes his anger, "Somebody'd written' Fuck you' on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other kids would see it, and how'd they wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them-cockeyed naturally-what it meant, and how they'd all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days. I kept wanting to kill whoever written it...But I rubbed it out anyway." (Pg.201). This is a clear example of Holden's concern for protecting children from encountering situations which could possibly make them less and less innocent.
             Another example of Holden's strange o...