Holden Caulfield Grief Quotes

Holden’s Grief

In J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in The Rye Salinger writes about the main character Holden Caulfield and his life. Holden is a teenager who comes from a wealthy family, he loves his family and lives very happy until the death of his brother Allie. After his brother died Holden becomes troubled, being kicked out of school again and again developing a negative view of the world. Holden throughout the book shows anger,denial, and acceptance over the loss of his brother. “I went over and pulled it right out of his goddam hand…” (Salinger 23). [see mla formatting packet to check document] see things to leave out of your paper handout this quote ,from chapter 5 of the book, shows Holden’s anger towards Stradlater after he

I was at the hospital.” the quote talks about Holden not being at his brother’s funeral and ties together the fact that deep down he denies the fact that his brother is dead because he wasn’t at his funeral and didn’t see his brother. This explains why holden talks about his brother in a way that almost makes it seem like Allie is still alive, because to him he still is. Holden also never lets go to the memories he had with Allie constantly telling about his past interactions with him. “I know it’s only his body and all that’s in the cemetery,and his soul’s in Heaven and all that crap, but i couldn't stand it anyway.” the quote is self explanatory in the fact that he outright states that he knows that Allie is dead but still somewhat cannot truly accept it. The fact that- -Holden outright says this tells a lot about his character in the fact that he can be too outright at times . The book in it’s entirety deals with multiple subjects ranging from depression to dealing with being an adult but an important subject that goes unnoticed is the subject of grief. Holden throughout the book deals with multiple stages of grief. The stages of grief he deals with are anger, denial, and finally acceptance bringing the book to a