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Holdens mental state throughout the novel
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In the Catcher in The Rye, the baseball glove represents Holden's anxiety about remembering Allies death. Before Holden begins writing Stradlater’s composition, he put on his “pajamas and bathrobe and my old hunting hat” (37), the clothes represent being comfortable, this helps Holden to channel his memories of Allie without being nervous or uncomfortable. Holden was hiding Allie's baseball glove in a “suitcase”(44) because he himself is hiding his feelings like he is hiding the baseball glove. In this scene Holden describes Allie’s glove like as if it were Allie himself. Stradlater later ignores Holden’s silent cry for comfort, and says “For Chrissake, Holden. This is about a goddam baseball glove”(41). This especially hurts Holden because
the baseball glove represents his brother, and when he finally opens up to someone, Stradlater fails to question or listen to Holden’s feelings. Because of the disregard to Holden's feelings, he feels like no one wants to hear his story of Allie. No one has ever really talked to Holden about his Allie’s death, he doesn't seem to have support from his family either. Holden is hiding many of his feelings because no one seems to care about him. Eventually Holden's feelings expressed on a paper end up in the trash bin. Just like the composition, Holden throws away his feelings about his brother once again, with a failed attempt for him to voice his suffering.
In his fight with Stradlater, Holden’s character is shown as a defender of innocence. He defends the memory of his brother through the report he writes for Stradlater. Because of Stradlater’s criticism on his brother’s death, Holden destroys the essay and says “All right, give it back to me, then,’ I said. I went over and pulled it right out of his goddamn hand. Then I tore it up.” Holden is tormented by the memory of his brother throughout the novel, and in this fight he defends his brothers memory by protecting the baseball glove. Later in this scene Holden is upset with Stradlater’s relationship with Jane. Holden explains, “If you knew Stradlater, you 'd have been worried, too. I 'd double-dated with the bastard a couple of times, and I know what I 'm talking about. He was unscrupulous.” Holden tries to defend Jane’s innocence and the reader is able to see Holden’s ethical code to protect the innocence and memory of others. In Holden’s confrontation with Maurice, Holden displays his detestation of the evil phony. “All of a sudden I started to cry. I 'd give anything if I hadn 't, but I did. 'No, you 're no crooks, ' I said. 'You 're just steeling five ' 'Shut up, ' old Maurice said and gave me a shove.” The scene between Maurice and Holden over the prostitute Sunny shows his emotions when it comes to fake people. In this scene he
“I found that the glove, as thin as it was, helped considerably, and inserted one pad after another until a good deal or relief was afforded” -Albert Spalding. Spalding had played on the Boston Red Stockings, today’s Red Sox, and pitched game after game and wore out his hands like all other players. So after he left the team, he managed and part owned the Chicago White Stockings, Today’s white Sox. In 1876 Spalding created and started selling the first professional baseball gloves. He sold them at his store, Spalding Sporting Goods, which he had opened earlier in 1876. After he had died in 1915 he was accepted into the Baseball Hall of Fame the year it opened in 1939. Albert Spalding created the first professional baseball glove, he applied past knowledge to innovate ways to prevent baseball injuries, and illuminated the world by making baseball safer.
While in New York with the fencing team, Holden loses all of their equipment, then buys a red hunting hat. Holden describes the hat as a, “red hunting hat, with one of those very, very, very long peaks… The way I wore it, I swung the old peak way around back - very corny, I’ll admit, but I liked it that way.”(Salinger, 24) The hat makes him stand out and seem like a unique person.
Allie's mitt was a very important symbol in Catcher In The Rye, the mitt had poems written all over it. Allie was Holden's little brother, he got leukemia and died in Maine. Allie's mitt symbolizes the innocence that Holden yearns for , Allie's innocence was preserved in the mitt. Allie died when he was young, he was still innocent. By dying young Allie stayed out of the phony, adult world. In some ways Holden wants to be Allie. Holden wanted to preserve his own innocence but he could not. A baseball mitt is a common part of childhood, so it has the "power" to preserve innocence. The most interesting part about Allie's mitt are the poems, a grown up would not be writing poems and reading them during the game, he would be competitive, and all he would want is to win. Allie was to innocent he did not care about winning he just wanted to play baseball.
Allie’s baseball mitt is a very important symbol in the novel. It is connected to the novel, because the heart of the novel is Holden's grief over his brother's death and his inability to accept it. When Holden finds out that his brother Allie died, he is in denial because he refuses to accept Allie’s death. Holden is in denial because he thinks why his innocent brother had to die and not him. Because Holden needs help dealing with this grief he must always take out the mitt, and acknowledge his feelings over Allie in order to release himself from the guilt he feels. When Holden’s roommate at Pencey, Stradlater, asks him to write a descriptive essay, Holden writes about Allie’s baseball mitt. Holden treats the mitt differentially, taking it with him to Pencey and copying “down the poems that were written on it” (Salinger 38). For Holden, t...
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". 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.
Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye on the surface is a story of an ill-behaved boy wandering the streets of New York getting into all sorts of mischief. Though, when looked at past the surface, we see a story of a troubled young man that is yearning for attention, acceptance, and love. Many theories have transpired about Holden Caulfield and his problems. Among them are Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and that he is just traveling through the five stages of grief.
I would like to discuss how Holden’s misinterpretation of the Robert Burns poem, “Coming Through the Rye”, sums up his deepest desires by taking a journey through his troubled adolescence and his journey to self–discovery that results in his breakdown. According to Phoebe, the original line in the poem is “if a body meet a body”. However, Holden’s misinterpretation of “if a body catch a body” removes all sexual connotations from the original poem. Holden is a deeply disturbed adolescent in search of a way to preserve his childhood innocence. His “red hunting cap” is a symbol of his uniqueness and his rejection to conform to society.
Holden views children ethically because they are sympathetic toward him, modest, and intelligent, unlike adults who are false-faced, hypocritical, and selfish. Holden’s dead brother Allie exemplifies his thinking process. Holden seems to remember Allie when he is feeling down about the world. The first memory of Allie that Holden shares to the audience was about Allie’s baseball mitt. Holden describes this mitt as a left-handed fielder's mitt, but there is something unique about it. It has poems written all over it, so “he’d [Allie] have something to read when he was in the field.” (Salinger, 38) Simply by writing these poems, the audience gets a good look at Allie’s character. He is very pure and simple-minded, unlike adults. He finds pleasure in the simplest of things, like little poems on his mitt. Allie’s mitt symbolizes how pure Allie was while he was alive and his death. Since Holden still treasures this object, one could infer that he still hasn't gotten over the fact that his inspiration in life is no longer living. Holden repents “back into the family” (“Either/Or”) and remembers the pure memory of his brother, which gives him the strength to go on in life. Holden wants to save children for a living. Holden claims that he will, “catch everybody if they started going over the cliff.” (Salinger, 173) Now, this occupation is strictly hypothetical, but the imagery that
J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye tells an unforgettable story of teenage angst by highlighting the life of Holden Caulfield, a young boy who commences a journey of self-discovery after being expelled from his private boarding school. Throughout the novel, Holden struggles with issues such as self-identity, loss, and a wavering sense of belonging. Holden’s red hunting hat is consistently used throughout the story as a symbol of his independence and his attachment to his childhood. From the very moment he receives it, Holden’s red hunting hat becomes a symbol of his own alienation. After traveling to New York for a fencing match and losing the team’s equipment on the subway, Holden is outcast by his teammates, who are angry that he hindered their ability to compete in the match.
“I was crying and all, I don’t know why, but I guess it was because I was feeling so damn depressed and lonesome” (53), Holden says. As humans, we have a hard time belonging in society. This is the same case for Holden Caulfield, the main character from the Catcher in the Rye. The Catcher in the rye, a novel by J.D Salinger, is about Holden, a lost boy in desperate need of help. Throughout the novel, Holden seems to be excluded by the world around him. He continually attempts to try and belong in a world in which he is isolating from. In this novel, Salinger uses symbols such as the red hunting hat, the ducks and Allie’s glove to support the theme, belonging and isolation.
The symbolism throughout the novel illustrates Holden’s isolation from the adult world. In the beginning of the Chapter Three, Holden returns to his dorm room where he finds his pestering roommate, Ackley. After seeing Holden’s red hunting hat, which he purchased in New York, Ackley is fascinated by it and tells Holden that “Up home [he] wears a hat like that to shoot deer in,” (22) Holden then takes the red hunting hat off of Ackleys’ head and closes one eye as if he is trying to shoot it. “This is a people shooting hat,” he says (22). It is obvious from the start of the novel that Holden’s red hat symbolizes his mark of individuality and independence. In this scene, the audience sees how his desire for independence is connected to the feeling of alienation and the bitterness Holden feels for the people in society. Of course, Holden will not actually sh...
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.
The admiration that Holden holds for certain characters is well expressed. Especially about his younger brother Allie, who is spoken remarkably of. Allie’s death was a shocking experience that Holden goes through, in his eyes, Allie has inspired him before and even after his death. One of the most important elements throughout the book was Allie’s glove, as...
from his classmates: “I was standing way the hell up on top of Thomsen Hill. You could see the whole field from there, and you could see the two teams bashing each other all over the place. You could hear them all yelling” (Salinger 5). He isolates himself from everyone down in the stands after the episode on the subway when he forgot the fencing equipment. Holden thinks that all the boys on the team will strongly dislike Holden which is why he watches the game from Thomsen Hill, above the stadium. The concept of purity is expressed as Holden believes his fencing teammates are not pure because they do not directly resemble Allie’s emotions and behavior towards others. Also, Holden’s isolation from society and the people around him is evidenced after he leaves the bus station and goes to make a phone call.