Examples Of Grief In Catcher In The Rye

Long Road to Acceptance

The seven stages of grief; are shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Everyone at one point in their life will experience loss and battle through each one of these stages. In the book Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, the main character, a 16-year-old boy named Holden Caulfield, is dealing with the recent death of his younger brother Allie. Allie’s death has caused Holden to flunk out of many schools and struggle to connect with others. The book is told from Holden's perspective, which allows the reader to get to see into his mind as he pushes through the grieving process. Some of the phases that Holden goes through are anger, when he smashed a window after Allie's death, denial when he used

Many times throughout the book Holden uses substance abuse and arranges different activities as a distraction from his thoughts on his brother’s death. After Holden’s younger brother Allie died he was sent to a private school called Pency. Holden was later kicked out of school and went to live in New York until he could find the courage to tell his parents he had been expelled. Holden was feeling very lonely so he decided to go down to the bar at the hotel where he was staying. He called his old friend Carl Luce who went to Whooton school with him. Holden met up with him for a drink and talked about how Carl’s dad is a psychoanalyst. After a while, Carl became annoyed with holden asking so many questions, and left. Holden stayed and he “sat at that goddamn bar until around one o’clock or so, getting drunk as a bastard,” he said, “When I was really drunk, I started that stupid business with the bullet in my guts again…I kept the blood from dripping all over the place. I didn’t want anyone to know I’m even wounded” (Salinger 166). Holden used alcohol to drown out his sorrows, which showed he was in the stage of denial where he refuses to accept how truly upset he is about Allie. The reason Holden went to bars and drinks is that he felt as if he could not be alone with his thoughts. The second that Holden is alone with his

This mental illness will influence someone's thoughts, feelings, and actions. Holden said multiple times throughout the book that he was feeling very depressed. He was so lonely in fact that he hired a prostitute to have some company and to build his confidence. Although what actually happened was the complete opposite. Holden could not go through with having sex with her and asked the prostitute to “just talk to him”. After she realized that she is not going to get what she came for, the prostitute eventually left. This leaves Holden feeling so empty and he realized that he has nobody he, “felt so depressed, you can’t imagine. What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud to Allie. Sometimes I do that when I get very depressed” (Salinger 110). Holden was fully aware that he was depressed, and he felt as if he had a void within himself that he filled up with sorrow. Throughout the entirety of the book, Holden always had a negative perspective on things and tends to see the worst in every situation. This is directly related to his depressive state since his depression clouded all his happiness. The fact that he tried to talk to Allie while he felt depressed showed that the loss of his brother is the source of his trouble. Talking out loud to someone that is no longer living is a very common way to cope with a loss. In fact, Holden tried to talk to Allie as a way to pull him out of his state of