Holden is someone who values innocence in other people but is also scared that it will go away because he has lost his own innocence due to to past tragedies. Out of all of the tragic events Holden has had one of the worst was when his beloved brother Allie passed away of leukemia when he was just 11. Allie was Holden's role model. Holden's describes Allie saying “You'd have liked him. He was two years younger than I was, but he was about fifty times as intelligent. He was terrifically intelligent. Holden also says how we will love him. Saying this shows how He wants Allie to have a legacy. We can also see that Holden was very sad when Allie died because of the way he is describing him. Losing Allie has made Holden’s innocence die. When speaking
To begin with, you must first take in to consideration Holden’s feelings towards his little brother Allie. Holden consider Allie “the smartest person in their family”. “..it wasn’t just that he was the most intelligent member in the family. He was also the nicest …. God, he was a nice kid, though” (5.7).This means that Holden looked
Allie, Holden's young brother who died several years earlier, was a major symbol throughout the story. When Holden remembers incidents from his past involving Allie, his attitude changes, such as when he writes the composition about Allie's baseball glove or when Holden broke his hand after punching all of the windows after Allie died. "I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it". (39) He feels that Allie was one of the few people who were not phony in a world full of phonies. More importantly, Allie represents the innocence and childhood that Holden strives to find throughout his three-day journey. In Holden's opinion, Allie represents the purity that Holden looks for in the world. Holden admits that he admires Allie more than he admires Jesus, and even prays to Allie at one point, rather than Jesus. Allie is Holden's role model, whom he judges the rest of the world according to. When Allie dies, it creates turbulence in Holden's life.
Holden’s life went through a major change at the age of 13 when his younger brother, Allie lost his battle to Leukemia. Holden fondly speaks of his red headed brother in the
Holden shows the trait of compassion through his generosity to others, feeling of sadness for others and by showing true love for his family. Early on in the novel, Holden shows compassion about his brother, Allie, who died of leukemia. Holden says, “You’d have liked him. He was two years younger than I was, but he was about fifty times as intelligent” (Salinger 43). This quote shows that Holden is still affected by the loss of his brother. The reader can assume that Holden wishes that things went differently for his brother since, by what Holden says, Allie had accomplished many things in his short life. Another way Holden shows compassion is through his interest in complete strangers. In chapter 17, Holden describes qualities of different girls he saw waiting (137). Mainly, he describes how their legs are folded and what sort of guys they will end up with. By doing this, he is showing compassion about people he does not even know. Because Holden shows such concern about people he has never
Both Holden and Charlie are full of self-loathing and depression, both experiencing the traumatic loss of a family member at a very young age. "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) In this quote Holden talks with his sister about the loss of his brother, Allie. Holden can't seem to move on ever since his brother's death. He needs to learn how to live his life in the present and not dwell on the past. Every day Holden relates everything he does and everything that happens back to Allie’s death. “Hey, Candace. I killed Aunt Helen, didn't I? She died getting my birthday present, so I guess I killed her right?
Have you ever pondered about when growing up, where does our childlike innocence go and what happens to us to go through this process? It involves abandoning previous memories that are close to our hearts. As we can see in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, we listen to what the main character; Holden Caulfield has to say about it. Holden is an average teenager dealing with academic and life problems. He remains untouched over his expulsion from Pencey Prep; rather, he takes the opportunity to take a “vacation.” As he ventures off companionless in New York City, we are able to observe many things about him. We see that Holden habitually states that he is depressed and undoubtedly, wants to preserve the innocence of others.
Holden’s little brother, Allie, also influences a lot on him. For example, Holden states, “…You’d have liked him. He was two years younger than I was, but he was about fifty times as intelligent…He was also the nicest member of the family in lots of ways. He never got mad at anybody…” Holden always thinks of his brother Allie as a good and intelligent boy. When Holden thinks about Allie, Holden shows his love for him and how much he likes him. Another important scene is when Holden says, “…I kept walking and walking up Fifth Avenue…Then all of a sudden, something very spooky started happening. Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I’d never get to the other side of the street.
Holden feels as if he is stuck in his 13 year old self. Although he is aging he isn’t necessarily maturing the way his classmates and other people are around him. This is due to the fact that he never received closure when Allie died. When he starts picturing his own funeral because he might get pneumonia and die, he remembers D.B. telling him about his brother's funeral. He stated, “I wasn’t there. I was still in the hospital. I had to go to the hospital and all after I hurt my hand” (Salinger 171). Since he never attended the funeral he never got to say his final goodbyes to the one person he truly loved. Holden feels as if he can’t connect with anyone else in the world like he did with Allie. If he did then he would most likely push them away, so he wouldn’t have to experience the trauma of loss again, because it greatly impacted his life the first time. The trauma Holden experienced when he was younger resulted in him not being able to form stronger relationships with people which made him more depressed and
If there were one word to tell what the theme of the book was it would be innocence. How we are all innocent at some point, how to try to keep our innocence, and how no one can keep their innocence forever. We all fall from our innocence. Adam and Eve fell from grace and innocence and set the tone for all of our lives. Throughout the whole book Holden is trying to make people keep their innocence and he wants to hold onto it himself. What he needs to learn and does learn through the course of the book is that no one can keep his or her innocence. We all fall at some point, but what we have control over is how hard we fall.
Themes in literary works are central, recurring ideas or messages that allow us to understand more deeply about the characters. It is a perception about life or human nature that is often shared with the reader. In The Catcher in the Rye, there are several themes that can be found in the words and actions of the narrator, Holden Caulfield. The dominating theme in this novel is the preservation of innocence, especially of children. We can see this throughout the novel, as Holden strives to preserve innocence in himself and others.
Holden has a near obsession with the death of his younger brother Allie, who died at age thirteen due to leukemia. Holden had punched and broke all the windows in the garage out of anger; he says that his hands still hurt from the incident. Throughout the novel, Holden dwells on Allies’ death. From Holden's thoughts, it is obvious that he loves and misses Allie. In order to hold on to his brother and to minimize the pain of his loss, Holden brings Allie's baseball mitt along with him where ever he goes. The mitt has additional meaning and significance for Holden because Allie had written poetry, which Holden reads, from the baseball mitt. Towards the end of the book, Holden proves again that he can’t cope with death. Phoebe, his younger sister, is putting him on the spot by asking him what he likes, but Holden can only think of two nuns and a boy, James W. Castle. James W. Castle was a boy who Holden had lent his sweater to, Castle died unfortunately by being thrown out of a window wearing Holden’s sweater. Another thing that haunts Holden is the fact that during roll call in class, his last name always is called after Castles’ last name. After the brief moment of reminiscing, Holden irritates Phoebe by saying, “I like Allie…”. He has trouble acknowledging the death of his brother.
Allie's death was tragic but maybe it is the death that Holden wanted for himself , he wanted to preserve his innocence. One example of Allie's innocence is " He was also the nicest, in lots of ways. He never got mad at anybody" Holden valued the mitt he only showed it to one person outside his family, Jane , "She was the only one, outside my family, that I ever showed Allie's baseball mitt to, with all the poems written on it. She'd never met Allie or...
The 1940's were a time of nationalism. Men had to have an appearance of a tough attitude. They were never allowed to let their real feelings show. One of the major reasons Holden becomes depressed is the death of his brother Allie. He described is brother as being nothing but perfect. He keeps this guilt locked up inside him because he blames his death on himself. A memory that haunts him is when he excluded his brother from a b-b gun game. Another memory that he held on to and was never able to forgive himself for was when Allie asked Holden to go bike riding and he didn't go. Holden did not have a good relationship with his Mother or Father. He needed them the most right after the death of Allie. However, we see Holden crying out help and attention when he threw a baseball through the window and broke it and still nobody talked to him. His older brother went off to Hollywood. The only one he adores is his younger sister Phoebe. He is able to talk to her and he thought she understood him.
S.N. Behrman, in his review for The New Yorker, also took a sharp look at Holden's personality. Behrman found Caulfield to be very self-critical, as he often refers to himself as a terrible liar, a madman, and a moron. Holden is driven crazy by phoniness, an idea under which he lumps insincerity, snobbery, injustice, callousness, and a lot more. He is a prodigious worrier, and someone who is moved to pity quite often. Behrman wrote: "Grown men sometimes find the emblazoned obscenities of life too much for them, and leave this world indecorously, so the fact that a 16-year old boy is overwhelmed should not be surprising" (71). Holden is also labeled as curious and compassionate, a true moral idealist whose attitude comes from an intense hatred of hypocrisy. The novel opens in a doctor's office, where Holden is recuperating from physical illness and a mental breakdown. In Holden's fight with Stradlater, his roommate, he reveals his moral ideals: he fears his roommate's sexual motives, and he values children for their sincerity and innocence, seeking to protect them from the phony adult society. Jane Gallagher and Allie, the younger brother of Holden who died at age 11, represent his everlasting symbols of goodness (Davis 317).
Throughout the book, Holden discusses and makes several references to his younger brother Allie. Allie had died of leukemia roughly three years before Holden starts telling the story of his weekend adventure in the Big Apple. Leukemia is a type of cancer and almost all of the people diagnosed with it had passed away back years. According to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, doctors started to put the first chemotherapy drugs in use around the mid-1950s. Allie’s death affects Holden in so various ways during the course of the novel. However, if they were in the 21st century, Allie would have had approximately an 80% chance of survival (“Child Leukemia” 15). But if that were true, Holden would have been a much different character. Allie’s death had shaped him to who he was and essentially scarred him; he never stopped mourning.