As a child everyone visualizes the world as a glorious place and cannot wait to grow up and join it all. However, as people grow up they begin to understand how the world works and realize that it is not as glorious as they once thought. In J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, sixteen year old Holden Cauldfield finds the world and the people in it to be unjust and unfair. Because of his dissatisfaction with the early death of his brother and the people around him, Holden develops a black and white view of the world and places everyone into two distinct categories: the innocents and the phonies.

The young children, especially his younger siblings Allie and Phoebe, that have not yet fallen into the disillusionments of adulthood form up Holden's group of innocents.
Holden’s late younger brother Allie and his younger sister Phoebe are two of the only people he cares about in the world.
When Holden’s younger brother Allie lost his early battle of leukemia, it crushed Holden because Allie was his favorite because “he was … the nicest … kid” (38).
Allie’s death is the biggest reason that Holden has his black and …show more content…
Holden wants to protect the innocents from falling off a cliff and into adulthood so“if [the innocents are] running [in the rye] and they don’t look where they’re going [ he wants ] to come out from somewhere and catch them [before the fall. He’d] just be the catcher in the rye” (173).
When visiting his sister’s school, Holden saw that “somebody'd written [something naughty and perverted] on the wall [which] drove [him] damn near crazy; [Holden] thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they'd wonder what the hell it meant” (201). Holden thinks kids are much better than adults because if “ you take adults, they look lousy when they're asleep, but kids don't; kids look all right”