The Catcher In The Rye Death Analysis

In the novel, Holden states, “When you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody” (Salinger) I believe this is a good example of depression because he’s already thinking about his own death. He’s thinking about how he wants to be buried and he even considers having his body dumped in a river. Holden puts down the traditional idea of being buried in a cemetery and having loved ones put flowers on your stomach. I think that Holden shows depression multiple times throughout the book. For example, Holden states, “The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move” (Salinger). This is an important quote because Holden encourages the idea of continuity. The passage where this quote takes place has importance. Holden returns to the museum a few times in the book. The museum represents the world Holden wishes he could live in. The museum shows traits of simplicity and gives things a place in time. Holden dreams of being “the catcher in the rye”, this is a fantasy where nothing ever changes and the world is stuck in a place in time. Holden says that, while the displays stay the same, a person is different every time he comes back to visit. It’s not age, exactly: it's the changes you go through in order to become an adult. He refers more to the intangible qualities of youth and innocence than he is about the physical ones. This shows that he doesn't want things to change. He doesn't want Phobe and himself to grow up, and he didn't want Allie to die. This passage shows how much he misses Allie because he just wants time to stop, possibly even rewind. Holden wants to go back and

In this quote, Holden is expressing how he wishes to save kids from “falling”, e.g. losing their innocence to what he sees as a corrupt and “phony” adult world. He wishes that he could save Allie from losing his innocence. By doing this, he is showing that he denies the permanence or significance of Allie’s death. He is holding onto a false hope that he can save Allie from losing his innocence (through death). Holden also isolates himself from society throughout the novel. For example, he misses Allie’s funeral, runs away from Pencey Prep, and fails to make phone calls to any of the people he wants to talk to. Holden is attempting to stay away from other people in an

“I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would 've, too, if I 'd been sure somebody 'd cover me up as soon as I landed. I didn 't want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory” (104). Holden is a complex character with mixed emotions about everything; many times contradicting his own thoughts and beliefs. Holden’s struggles are due to the lack of parental attention, the death of his younger brother, and his unusual relationships with other characters in the novel, “The Catcher in the Rye.”

One of the hardships Holden must cope with is his inability to come to terms with death, in particular that of his younger brother, Allie. Holden seems to have experienced a

Holden is unable to accept realities of life because of his negative personality. He claims that many people are phony and that they try to do things to make them look better than they are. Holden also thinks of many things as depressing. “It was really nice sightseeing, if you know what I mean. In a way, it was sort of depressing, too, because you kept wondering what the hell would happen to all of them” (p. 123). Holden always finds a down side to a situation. He fails to recognize the good sides of life, and this prevents him from seeing advantages in adulthood that are not present in his life.

The second death was that of James Castle, Holden’s classmate at Elkton Hills School. He jumped out of the window when he was mercilessly bullied by some classmates of his and ended up dead. “He was dead, and his teeth, and blood, were all over the place. He had on this turtleneck sweater I'd lent him” (Salinger 2010 : 92), although Holden didn't know James well enough his death left a mark on him. Readers can sense that Holden in some way admires this boy for committing suicide in this situation. He romanticizes his death and reveres him as a saint. At some point, he imagines killing himself by jumping out the window like Castle did, but he cannot bear the thought of lying dead on the streets with a crowd of people gathering to look at his body. "I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would've done it, too, if I'd been sure somebody'd cover me up as soon as I landed. I didn't want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory". (Salinger 2010 : 58) Holden seems to think that it is better to die young than to become an adult materialist like his parents, brother, and nearly every adult he meets. Death, in the end, would be in a way sufficient means for preserving his own innocence. It would remove him far from any other changes, leaving him conserved as Allie and Castle. In this case death act as a symbol of freedom, a gateway, a relief from one’s troubles and

As stated in the book, the night that Allie passed away, Holden spent the night in the garage and broke all the windows, leaving him hospitalized. His death has affected Holden in many ways. Occasionally, we can find Holden discussing regrets he had with Allie, such as refusing to let him fire BB guns with him, shown when he said,

Let’s consider once more Holden’s view of adults and his quest. As stated before, his views of mistrust of adults derive from their lack of empathy and their cynicism. Holden's parents for example did not teach him about life but rather they sent him off to a boarding school, creating a communication barrier between them. They also seemed to get over the death of his brother much faster than Holden could. In the book, Allie died of leukemia at the age of 11, which Holden emotionally devastated, since his youngest brother and his role model passed away so quickly. As a result of Allie’s death, Holden broken the windows in the garage and hurt himself; this shows how the death affected him and was an important caused of Holden’s mental state.

Holden loved Allie, and was disturbed from the news of his death. Holden was hospitalized after punching his garage windows. When Holden explained Allie’s traits, he said, “But it wasn’t just that he was the most intelligent member in the family. He was also the nicest, in lots of ways” (Salinger 50).” Holden thought the most of Allie. He thought Allie had the most potential out of anybody he had ever met. He also thought Allie was a genuinely good person, and that he did not deserve to die. One of the greatest causes to depression is a death or a loss. When Holden finally came up with an answer to phoebe’s question to think of something that he liked, Holden’s answer was that he liked Allie. Phoebe told Holden that Allie is dead. Holden then said, “I know he's dead! Don't you think I know that? I can still like him, though, can't I? Just because somebody's dead, you don't just stop liking them, for God's sake especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that're alive and all" (Salinger 222-223). Holden was constantly depressed about Allie because he was always thinking of him. Allie was the nicest person Holden had ever met. The death of a person with an impact like that would cause anyone devastation. His mindset makes him believe that no one else will be as good to him as Allie was. He thought the best person that will ever be in his life was gone

How would the death of a loved one affect you? Coming to terms is a difficult process for everyone, especially for Holden Caulfield, in The Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caulfield, 13, lost his brother, Allie, at 11 to leukemia in Maine in July 18 of 1946. Holden now 17 finds himself coming to terms to young Allie’s death, along with his own problems. After analyzing J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s characterization matures and develops after acknowledging Allie’s death through reflection and this affects the plot by helping Holden come to terms with his own emotional problems.

In J. D Salinger 's novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist, Holden, goes through many hardships in his journey to self-knowledge. In the beginning, Holden has to deal with being kicked out of school and not having any place to call home. He is also struggling with the unfortunate tragedy of the death of his beloved younger brother Allie. At the same time, Holden is trying to deal with growing up and accepting the adult world. Throughout the novel Salinger addresses the conflicts faced by a young man struggling with the trials and tribulations of growing up while also confronting personal loss and loneliness along the way.

This all changed when he died. Now that Allie is gone, Holden is infatuated with a memory that he searches for in every

Holden experiences extreme difficulty accepting his current realities and one of the main factors causing this is the lasting negative impact his brother Allies death had on his life. Firstly, when Holden decides to leave his school, he tells readers , “I don’t care if it’s a sad goodbye or a bad goodbye, but when I leave a place, I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse” (Salinger, 4). Holden’s need for closure is evident in this quote. When Allie died, it was very unexpected and he was not prepared to let him go, resulting in his denial that his brother is actually

In Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield is ineffectively trying to come to terms with the death of Allie, his younger brother. Whenever Holden is reminded of his brother or more specifically his death, he feels a wave of depression that he can not pass. Because he can not stop feeling miserable, Holden cuts himself off from people in his life. The only way he feels content again is by getting physically violent with himself or other people. Once he has become bloody and battered enough, he sees the damages his body took, and enjoys the view, because it shows that he is tough, something he thinks he is not. Then, Holden finally calms down and returns to his normal state. Throughout the novel, Holden uses a cycle of grief that

Times with little hope in our lives can throw us into a range of emotion. One of the most famous novels, The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger portrays one of life’s most important range of emotion that human beings can feel, the five stages of grief. The main character within this classic novel, Holden Caulfield, is trapped within these five stages of grief after his brother, Allie, dies of leukemia. Holden is then stuck in the five stages of grief after not being able to obtain closure. Holden’s process of going through the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) play a major part in the character of Holden and the novel itself, making the Character vs. Self the main plotline.