Examples Of Grief In Catcher In The Rye

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Greif the Catcher in the Rye Every human being in this world will go through challenges at some point in their lives. The novel, Catcher in the Rye authored by J.D. Salinger depicts the life of a young high school dropout student named Holden Caulfield, grieving from the death of his brother. Holden’s character demonstrates several stages of grief such as anger, denial of his brother’s death, depression, and some social problems for instance failing to form a stable connection with people. From the beginning of the story Holden suffers from confusion and makes continuous mistakes as a consequence of being mentally stuck in his brother’s death.Throughout the story Holden goes through the different stages of grief including anger and depression, …show more content…

After becoming aware of his brother’s death, he is unable to control his anger which leads his family wanting to psychoanalyze him because “[He] broke all the windows in the garage the night he died,and [he] broke all the goddam window with [his] fist, just for the hell of it”(39). Holden’s action of breaking the glasses signifies the importance of his brother life to him. The way he felt toward his brother can not be portrayed by using literary devices, but i can mention that during every baseball he reads Allie’s poem even after years and he talks with him.The importance of Allie’s role in Holden’s life can be traced to his childhood were he didn’t only carried out a role of a brother for Holden but the closed and most trustworthy person that Holden could possibly ever have.Allie’s death seems like the end of life for Holden, he doesn’t know what to do without …show more content…

The constant review of this memory demonstrates that he is still stuck in his childhood and he is not able to move on, he feels terrible about rejecting his brother’s request and how polite h behaved.The nice attitude of his brother causes a sense of depression in surrounded him because he is unable to put the past away and it still haunts him and wishes he could change the past. Every time he goes over the memory he feels more and more depressed because he didn’t use the good time he could have with his brother very well .After Allie’s death Holden feels he has lost his path an identity,therefore, he gets suck in his child and he is unable to mature and develop like the rest of the people around