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Explain How Relationships Affect Holden's Identity

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Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all” clearly insights what the life of Holden Caulfield was like. Holden from The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is influenced by those around him like his family. Mostly, his little sister Phoebe and his dead younger brother Allie affect Holden’s point of view and how he acts or responds to others. Relationships have the most significant impact on a person’s identity, as shown through Holden’s relationships with his family. Holden’s identity is impacted by the relationships he formed as seen through his behavior. He wanted to do this because of his childhood. Childhood is where we learn what relationships are and how to create them. He lost his own innocence because …show more content…

This hindered Holden’s way to communicate and relate to others, this affected his relationships that he already has with his family. Holden’s relationship with Allie is one of his strongest relationships we see in the novel and one time we see it is when Phoebe asks him, “Name one thing you like?” and later Holden responds, “I like Allie” expressing his relationship with him and also how he doesn’t like anything except Allie and Phoebe (Salinger 169 and 171). It highlights that he likes innocent kids and also his relationships with others aren’t very good. Holden's good relationships are only with his younger siblings which isn't good in the adult world. Throughout the novel, Holden tries to find a relationship of his to talk to but couldn’t find anyone but Phoebe and during the end of the

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In The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, there are minor characters such as Phoebe and Stradlater that resemble the different characteristics that Holden has, and this is presented through their relationships with him suchs the innocence and hope that Phoebe has and gives peace to Holden, and the corruption and falseness that Stradlater maintains while showing his “phoniness” which causes Holden anger, yet it shows his hypocrisy. While he does have a good side to his personality because he wants the best for the future of the younger kids and praises honesty as well as innocence, Holden also has a negative side to his character that shows his loss of hope and corruption through the use of his language and angry nature towards others and

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Although he doesn’t feed into any more than just stating his feelings usually there still is deeper emotional meaning to it. In some spots in the book it is merely Holden saying he was feeling depressed, but in other spots you see him try to connect to anyone in order to just talk to someone or try to cover his feelings with alcohol and random conversations. At one point Holden is in a cab and he starts asking questions such as: “by any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over” and this might be an actual concern of his but I see it more as a way to reach out to somebody who’s older and might something more figured out than Holden does at seventeen (60)?. Sometimes as a teenager when you don’t have someone to talk to you lose sight of what is really happening because you can’t vent to sort it out and Holden finally starts to vent to his sister Phoebe and he says, “I kept talking about Pencey” and he probably couldn’t stop at this point (168).

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After talking about his childhood memories with his brother he states, ¨He is dead now. He got leukemia and died when we were up in Maine, on July 18, 1946. You´d have like him.¨ Then after talking about Allie’s old baseball mitt he said, ¨I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it¨(43-44). Allie’s death is used to show the unexpected change that Holden had experienced during his life. Allie was only eleven when he died, and Holden was thirteen.

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The Catcher in the Rye is a novel written by J.D. Salinger that follows Holden Caulfield as he wanders through New York after being kicked out of school; whilst he deals with the loss of his brothers, the phoniness of everyday life, and his own innocence in an unforgiving world. The loss of Holden’s brothers plays a huge part in why Holden is so lost in this crucial part of his life. Having lost one younger brother, Allie, to death and one older brother, D.B., to Hollywood, Holden feels constantly betrayed by both of them for not being there for him. Despite this, Holden constantly looks back on memories of the two and even talks to them when he feels the need.

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Allie died at the age of eleven because of leukemia. Holden was very connected to Allie; he was more like an older brother to him than Holden was to Allie because Allie was very smart, nice, special, and knew what to do unlike Holden. Holden was very hurt to the point he broke all the windows in the garage and was hospitalized. In the present time, Holden becomes isolated from the society around him. He doesn’t allow himself to get too close to anyone.

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Holden’s dedications to saving others is all because of Allie. No matter how readers feel about Holden one cannot deny his love for children and his siblings. As a reader, it is hard to place yourself in the seat of a character that you find distasteful. In complete honesty readers, may find it hard to connect to Holden because one is very like him in different situations. This book shows that growing up can be difficult, but reachable, don’t be a phony, and that no one is ever completely

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An individual's identity is the expression of the unique circumstances that develop a person's morality, and how they interact with the world; The theme of identity in J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" is expressed through Holden Caulfield's confusion and naivety to the world around him as he struggles to reconcile his past with the changing world around him. The character Holden Caulfield is shown to have been faced with a troubled past filled with deaths at a young age. When Holden has to face an adult world filled with sexual expression the innocence of his youthful identity is challenged by the sexuality of adolescence. Furthermore his identity is explored through Holden's cynicism to the adults in his life as a result of his child

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In the novel, he mentions his brother plenty of times, that he misses him very much, although he continuously denies it. Not only did this affect his mental health, it also ruined the social aspect of his life. From this, he no longer allows himself to attach and connect to other people, and alienates himself from almost everyone he comes across in the story. That is, except for his sister, Phoebe, the only person he admits to loving. Perhaps, if this one major event never occured, Holden would not be so depressed and be socially, mentally, and emotionally okay.

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