Catcher In The Rye Allie's Mitt Analysis

The Connotation Of Allie’s mitt To The Catcher In The Rye

Salinger uses the symbol of Allie's mitt to express the theme of innocence as demonstrated in a major symbol, big factor in Catcher in The Rye, and overall connection to the theme of the book.

First of all, Allies mitt's represents pure innocence and no other symbol in the book represents innocence as good as the mitt does. The mit represents Allies life to us as a innocent and young life. “He got leukemia and died when we we’re up in Maine, on July 18, 1946.” In this quote he tells that his brother died. This shows his brother died when he was young. Furthermore he dies as an innocent child who was not exposed to the adult world or the “phoniness.” Allie's death was tragic to Holden but maybe, in some ways Holden wanted the death himself, he wanted to preserve his innocence. Another point that shows Allie's mitt represents innocence is when Holden says Allie used to read poems on his glove while playing baseball which he wrote before the game so he wouldn’t be bored.A grown up would never read

The heart of the story was Holden grieving over the death of his brother. Holden needs a solution to his problem. So he pulls out the mitt and confront his feelings to discharge all his grief and depression. Indeed, holden does not understand why his smart nice brother dies. He feels guilty that he who is stupid and inferior is still living. Furthermore, Holden starts to hate all the adults or loses faith in them, calls them phony. Holden has a second thought of becoming an adult he loses hope in his future and it seems to him nothing in the world matters to him anymore. We can see that throughout the book. He smokes, gets drunk, and does daring acts like getting a prostitute in his room. He also tries to escape all this guilt and grief by wasting time with unnecessary people he calls phony. Hence it is Allie's mitt that the whole book is based