Themes of Catcher in the Rye

This novel is filled with themes from the very beginning. Growing up and remaining youthful seems to be a major theme. Holden is very immature and throughout the novel exhibits his want to protect youth from corruption. He was at Phoebe's school and he noticed a lot of curse words scribbled all over the walls. This greatly upset him and he tried to erase as many as possible. His refusal to grow up reminds me of Peter Pan. The next theme is innocence. Holden has shown his innocence by being curious about sex. At one point there was a prostitute in his room, and he got really nervous and refused to have sex. Another theme I noticed was lonliness. Holden does not really have many close friends, and seems really isolated. I noticed his overusage of the word "phonies". Holden seems to think that everyone is fake. He refuses to associate with anything to do with movies or Hollywood, because people in movies are just acting, and Hollywood is where the movies are filmed. Holden also comes off as being on edge or crazy. He seems mentally unstable, and even makes comments on how his nerves are shot. One paragraph towards the end of the book convinced me that Holden was indeed crazy. He claimed that everytime he crossed the road he would disappear. The ending of the book even suggests that he had a mental breakdown and was hospitalized. Religion is another theme in this novel. Holden claims to be athiest at the start of the book, but throughout the book he refers to the bible and has a high respect for people of religion, such as nuns. He did not have much money, but he made a generous donation to some nuns at a train station. Salinger uses these themes,I think, because these are all things a person may experience at least once during their lives.