Catcher in the Rye: Childhood Innocence - What Holden Never Had Probably the greatest irony of the novel is the fact that, despite his love of "childhood innocence," Holden is and acts far from innocent himself. In fact, he is its antithesis. He acts that way for many reasons. First of all, he has so many responsibilities. Second, he never fits in with the crowd, and finally, he never gets any real help for the problems that he deals with. Holden does have a love for "childhood innocence" as seen across the book. For example, on page two hundred and one "Somebody'd written ‘ Fuck you' on the wall. It drove me damn