Change is something everyone has to learn to accept. Unfortunately, for Holden Caulfield this concept is hard. Holden Caufield, protagonist in J.D. Salinger’s The Cather in the Rye, wants innocence to be a permanent characteristic in everyone’s life. Throughout the novel, he is on a “hunt” for his identity. Holden is a unique individual who sees the world completely different from any common person. All through the novel, the audience can feel Holden changing just like how Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay” states. Holden Caulfield’s journey through the novel and Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay” both do a marvelous job in talking about the main theme of loss of innocence and youth.
“Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost is brilliant, yet complex short poem that illustrates various aspects of human experience: morality, loss of innocence and youth, and the fact that good things at some point in life must end. Even though, Frost only discusses the life-cycle of a leaf it is easy to look past this and connect his theme to life in general. When Robert Frost says “Then leaf subsides to leaf” this can be interpreted as one leaf replacing another just like how a new born replaces those who grow old and die. Robert Frost’s poem has a deeper meaning to it than one can imagine. Throughout the poem, Frost emphasizes on the loss of innocence and youth. The first four lines of the poem give a better illustration of this theme. “Nature’s first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour” through these lines he demonstrates the beauty of youth, but at the same time he shows how those beautiful times cannot be held. Lastly, “So Eden sank to grief” can be interpreted as loss of innocence. Frost makes a very strong biblical allusion here. For Christians, “Eden” represents innocence because that is the beautiful garden where Adam and Eve lived before eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Eating from the Tree of Knowledge...