Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies are two very interesting books that tie in to each other in a very ironic way. The Loss of innocence is the main reason that these two books tie into each other. It is ironic because in Catcher in the Rye, Holden, tries to preserve innocence, while in Lord of the Flies, the boys lose their innocence. The “Catcher in the Rye” phrase symbolizes that Holden is standing on a cliff trying to make sure the kids do not fall off. The rye field symbolizes youth, and how all the kids are playing. Holden is basically saying if the kids fall of the cliff they are going into the world of the adults in which Holden believes is a “phony world”. In the scene with Phoebe, Holden tells her this, and he sums it up saying he wants to preserve the innocence of kids. In Lord of the Flies, the boys are stranded on in island with no adults. Some of the boys quickly lose their innocence and become savage hunters headed up by the fierce dictator Jack. Jack and the hunters are always acting very rampant yelling crazy things like, “Kill the pig” and “cut his throat”. In the world today, there should be a compromise of how much innocence should be lost, and how much innocence you should have in your life, even as an adult.
In Lord of the Flies Piggy and Ralph try to preserve innocence on the island. These two are competing against Jack who brain washes all the kids into thinking hunting and getting meat is more important than getting rescued. Jack, over and over again, demonstrates this idea especially when he leaves the fire to burn out when a ship was passing by the island. In some ways, Ralph and Piggy can be compared to Holden as they try to preserve innocence on the island. All three of the characters realizes to some degree that everyone one is going to lose their innocence at some point in life, and you cannot stop it from happening. In life today, everyone loses some sort of innocence in some point in their life.
If Holden were to be on the same island of all the kids he would of been the happiest kid in the world. He would of loved idea of no adults, and he would think that the island would be filled with innocent happy little children. This is the exact opposite of what happened in the book when most of the kids lost their innocence right away. It even went so far that the kids killed each other. It is also ironic because Piggy and Ralph were the only people acting like adults and trying to keep the innocence. Adults might not be phony, and it may be okay to grow up a little and act like adults.
All of the characters in both books are lost their innocence in some way or another. In the beginning of Catcher in the Rye Holden does not realize it, but by the end he sees Phoebe on the carousel and relizes everybody grows up and loses their innocence. The same thing happens in the Lord of the Flies when Ralph breaks down crying at the end of the book when he realizes it is impossible to keep your innocence, and there will always be someone else tampering with it. Part of growing up is about losing your innocence, and no one can keep theirs forever.
