Have you ever thought about when we grow up, where our childhood innocence goes, and what happens to us in this process? It involves letting go of previous memories that we hold dear. As we can see in The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, we hear what the main character is; Holden Caulfield has this to say about it. Holden is an average teenager facing academic and life problems. He remains untouched by his expulsion from Pencey Prep; rather, he takes the opportunity to take a “vacation.” As he ventures companionless through New York City, we can observe many things about him. We see that Holden habitually states that he is depressed and, no doubt, wants to preserve the innocence of others. Throughout most of the book, Holden repeatedly talks about having “the time”; yet, however, he states that when he is close to doing it, he stops because the girl hinders him. Holden did not follow through on his desire to have “the time,” even when he hires a prostitute. When Holden first sees the prostitute Sunny, he loses the urgency and desire to finally have sex. “I took her dress to the closet and hung it up for her. It was fun. It made me feel a little sad when I hung it up. I thought about her going to a store and buying it, and no one in the store knowing she was a prostitute just thought she was a normal girl when she bought it. It made me feel damn sad, I don't know exactly why” (95-96). Holden imagines that others think that Sunny is the typical woman who goes shopping, without knowing what kind of woman she really is. From the contents of Holden's mind, this section is an example of Holden searching for a small trace of innocence left in Sunny. "'Me? Twenty-two." "Funny, you are." I... middle of the card... want them to turn into "fakes". Holden seeks a peaceful and uncorrupted world but cannot achieve it due to the actions of others Holden's outlook on life, is quite passionate. Although he is a firm pessimist, calling every person he meets "fake", there is an alternative side to him. In his interaction with Phoebe and the other children in the book, he tries to protect them from rest of the society, as children are still naive and pure. It is justifiable why Holden longs to preserve the innocence of others. For most of us, as we grow up, we begin to understand more different, different from what we saw when we were young, but as a person who has seen and experienced more in life. Work cited Salinger, JD The Catcher in the Rye Boston: Piccolo, Brown and Company, 1951.