Strengths Of Holden

People have many different comfort tools, some big, some small, some round, and some tall. Some people use teddy bears, while others use blankies; People can even sometimes use others as their comfort tool. In the book The Catcher and the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the main character Holden goes through a lot; Sometimes good and sometimes bad. When he is confronted by something bad it usually ends in him being quite depressed. Allie is Holden's little brother who died of leukemia when Allie was eleven and Holden was thirteen. Allie's death acts as a weight slowing down Holden’s development and making him get stuck in his grief. When Allie died it caused Holden to start a long and painful descent into depression. The time period of where he hits

After Holden lost his brother Allie it sent him into a rage. It caused him to shatter all of the windows in his garage and breaking his hand with them. Holden was sent to the hospital immediately after breaking his hand and because of Holden's hospitalization, he was unable to attend Allie's funeral to say his final goodbye. Due to Holden’s absence at the funeral, he has a hard time letting go of Allie. “You don’t like anything that’s happening…”Because you don’t,” she said. “ Name one thing”...”I like Allie,”...”Allie’s dead--You always say that!” (187-189). Holden doesn't like going to the graveyard because he can't bring Allie in out of the rain so he never was able to accept the fact that Allie is gone. To help accept Allie’s death Holden carries around his younger brothers baseball mitt. “My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder's mitt. 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 up at bat.” (43). Holden really cherishes this baseball mitt and the memory it holds. He enjoys writing about it when Stradlater, his roommate, asks him to write a composition for him. “I happened to have it with me, in my suitcase…” (43). Holden carries Allie’s mitt around with

“What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud, to Allie. I do that sometimes when I get very depressed. I keep telling him to go home and get his bike and meet me in front of Bobby Fallon's house.” (110). When Holden is feeling completely awful and can not deal with the real world anymore he goes into an almost alternate reality, talking to Allie as if he were really there sitting in the room with him. We really see an example of this at the end of the book when Holden is on his way to say his final goodbyes to his sister Phoebe. “...I kept walking and walking up Fifth Avenue...Then all of a sudden, something very spooky started happening. Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down, and nobody'd ever see me again...Every time I'd get to the end of a block I'd make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I'd say to him, "Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Please, Allie." And then when I'd reach the other side of the street without disappearing, I'd thank him. Then it would start all over again as soon as I got to the next corner. But I kept going and all. I was sort of afraid to stop, I think – I don't remember, to tell you the truth. I know I didn't stop