Examples Of Loss In Catcher In The Rye

Loss. Pain. Healing. When a loved one passes, one often feels their emotional and physical world flips upside down. Holden Caulfield loses his younger brother, Allie, after battling leukemia. This death shatters Holden’s world, engendering his inability to grasp reality and the need to mature. Likewise, the loss of a loved one shatters my world. The Lord called my grandfather home after several years of battling various health conditions. Whether admitted to the hospital for a stroke or a heart complication, my grandfather consistently stayed positive and continued fighting. I hold on to these positive memories of my grandfather like Holden cherishes his brother’s memories. While Allie does not physically appear in the novel, his absence significantly affects Holden and his actions. In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

He was left-handed. The thing that was descriptive about it, though, was that he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them on it so that he’d have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was at bat (43).
This baseball glove reminds Holden of his younger brother and holds him back since he “happens to have it with [him], in [his] suitcase” (44). If Holden constantly reminds himself of his loss, he will never recover and move forward. Allie prevents Holden from wanting to mature and adapting to his maturation. Since Holden saw firsthand the death of a young child, he worries that maturation will lead to death. This fear dissuades Holden from becoming mature. He fears the future and feels he cannot handle it. Allie’s death holds him captive, and Holden does nothing to overcome this fear. Death holds people captive, causing them to be unable to handle the pain associated with it. One eventually reaches their limit and channels their pain and suffering into horrific actions. Allie’s death pushes Holden to his breaking