Experience to Innocence

                We’ve all heard of the transition from innocence to experience but only exiguous amounts of people have heard of the gruesome trip from experience to innocence.  We all make the transition sometime in life from innocence to experience but there’s always that feeling of wanting to go back.  Holden Caulfield is on this trail trying to go from experience to innocence but lives too far in the experienced world, that there is no way of crawling back.

Holden is your regular school boy.  His family makes an honest living and he lives in school dorms with his roommate Stradlater.  He has already been kicked out of school and is now being kicked out of his current school Pency.  He is failing every class but one.  He doesn’t seem to care though.  He has already lost his will of living.  He feels as though his importance on the earth is nothing but a speck of dirt.  He has lost his innocence and doesn’t quite where to turn.  He doesn’t have an idea of what he wants or needs to do.  Holden is homeless on the streets with nobody to turn to for advice but two old teachers of his.  One of which he slept at his house and woke to his former teacher petting him on the head.  He really has no guidance on where to go and is messed up in his own world of emptiness.

                There is always this transition in life from innocence to experience.  When you are a little toddler, you are innocent.  You don’t know left and right just like you don’t know right and wrong.  People always go through this change but it’s the people who want to go back who are just as confused as the toddlers.  It’s almost like war.  When you kill all of these people, can you ever go back to just being normal?  The answer is yes but it might take all of your sanity to get there.  This is what happened to Holden Caulfield.  He drinks and smokes and is already in the experienced world only at the age of twelve.   His body and the way he acts is like he has already graduated from college.  Holden is fighting to get back to the innocent world but at times veers from the track.  He is on his way and is using all of his power to get there and is slowly headed towards insanity.

                Holden is trying to get back to a regular life that he should be living.  But the path back is not an easy one.  He is caught in the world of experience in which he cannot find his way out.  He does not know where to go and everywhere he turns is a dead end.  The road from innocence to experience is not an easy road but to go from experience to innocence could cost you your sanity or even your life.  We don’t think about everybody that is on the road back and Holden is caught in this.  Nobody really realizes what his goal is to get back to.  Holden is fighting to get back and is slowly going towards insanity every moment of his life.  He is trying to move back to where he was and where he wants to be but has gone astray from the hidden trail.

                The trail that Holden is on is one of great struggle and a path of seclusion.  He tries to turn for people to help him but he is on his own.  It is like the world is empty.  He has nobody to help guide him on his journey back to his real life.  The life he really wants to live.  He tries to turn for help but there is nobody who is in that same state of mind.   He is slowly working his way back but in turn, losing his grip on sanity.  He looks left and right, up and down and finds nowhere to go.  Holden is confused and looks for help everywhere but finds nothing and slowly dips his way into insanity.  He has nowhere to turn and nobody to go to for help to guide him on his way back to where he wants to go.  He is caught on the boarder of innocence and experience and loses his sanity with his trip.

                Holden’s life is a pile of just mess.  He doesn’t know where to go or where to turn.  Nowhere to turn in his life as he fights his way back but doesn’t realize he is slowly going insane.  He makes his trip back to innocence but while on his way, goes back to the mindset of a toddler.  His journey back to innocence has been made but with the price of his sanity.