In the Catcher in The Rye, Holden does not fully experience the different stages of grief. Instead, he is stuck in the depressed stage. He keeps reliving visions of his childhood and how his life is now. He does not accept the fact that his younger brother, Allie, died from leukemia when he was thirteen. Holden continues to be in denial. His physical actions reveal that he continues to harbor strong feelings of anger. He also is a bit ritualistic in continuing to talk to his brother out loud despite knowing he is dead. The first stage of grief is denial, the action of declaring something untrue. Holden never comes to the conclusion of realizing Allie is gone. Holden states, “What I did, I started talking loud, sort of out loud, to Allie” (Salinger …show more content…
Holden never stops thinking about his younger brother. This causes Holden to question the meaning of life and everything around him. It also brings about thoughts of suicide, feelings of loneliness, and thinks about his displeasure with the world. Holden states, “I felt so depressed, you can’t imagine” (Salinger 110). He experienced such a strong feeling of sadness, he realizes he doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore. The third stage of grief is anger. Holden shows signs of anger with himself and with the realization of Allie passing. He is so mad about what happened that it causes him to punch all the windows out of the garage and breaks his hand, but doesn’t know exactly why he did so. He states, “I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it… I hardly didn't even know I was doing it” (Salinger 44). Holden used this as a way to cope with the loss. The fourth stage of grief is the feeling of guilt. Holden experiences this by thinking of what he could have done to save Allie, even though he couldn’t have changed the outcome. Holden comes to the conclusion of blaming himself and thinks it is his fault. He thinks he could’ve acted better or did something different to help Allie’s