Length: 934 words (3.4 pages)
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Troubled Holden in Catcher in the Rye

 

        In J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is

portrayed as a young, troubled individual. He tells us his story from the

mental institution where he is currently residing.    Holden refuses to

acknowledge his emotions in regard to the death of his brother Allie. In

reaction to Allie's death, Holden hides from himself, his true feelings

about change, death and relationships with other people. He does not

realize that his Allie died of leukemia three years before this story takes place.

Holden speaks highly of his brother. He discusses how Allie was younger

than him but fifty times as smart. Holden also tells us that Allie was much

more mature for his age then he should have been. This is the basis of

Holden's fear of growth and change. The more you grow, the closer to death

you find yourself and death is the ultimate change.

 

        Reveling in innocence, perfectness, and being untouched by change

is the most comfortable pattern of living for Holden:

 

            "In chapter 5 when Holden is waiting for Ackley to get

            ready to go to town, he looks out of the window of his

            room, opens it, and packs a snowball from the snow

            on the window ledge. He begins to throw it at a parked

            car, but doesn't because the car "looked so nice and

            white". Then he aims at a fire hydrant, but stops again

            because that also looks "too nice and white". Finally

            he decides not to throw it at anything and closes the

            window...What Holden sees through the window is for

            him a visual embodiment of what he unconsciously

            seeks: a state of Being which is distinct from the flux

            of this world of Becoming, with its corruption, violence,

            noise, decay and death." (Burrows 84)

 

      When Holden talks to us about how much he loves the museum, he says

that the museum is great because everything just stays behind a piece of

glass and does not change. Some things should not change. He is really

saying that he doesn't want to change the way Allie changed. Also, he says

that the only thing that is different when he goes to the museum is himself

and he can't stand it. He does not want to go inside. This shows that he

does not want to see how much he has grown. He does not want to see how

much he has grown apart and different from Allie. He won't admit that his

feeling towards change has to do with Allie so that he wont have to deal

with it. He just keeps on going and never stops to think about it.

 

      His lack of ability to communicate and deal with people is Holden's

worst problem. Throughout the book we see how hard it is for Holden to

admit to himself that he likes someone or how hard it is for him to have a

normal conversation. It is so difficult for him because if he begins to get

close to someone he thinks he will lose them just like he lost his brother.

He can't talk about himself to people because he will open up to them and

then trust them and become vulnerable to being hurt. Ackley is the only

person that Holden can be friends with. "He was a virgin if ever I saw one.

I doubt if he ever gave anybody a feel" (Salinger 37). Since Holden is so

convinced that Ackley is as innocent as he himself  is to the world, Holden

trusts him the most out of all his friends but will not admit this. He

likes talking with Ackley. Everybody else has experienced more than Holden

and is less innocent and more mature, more like Allie was. Holden will not

let himself get close to anyone.

 

      Holden fear of death is his fear of the most ultimate change.

Allie's death was the most ultimate change in Holden's life so far. The

less innocent and pure he gets, the closer to death he thinks he becomes.

When he says that he wants to be "the catcher in the rye" and save the kids

from falling off the cliff, he is really saying that he wants to stop them

from falling down from innocence to adulthood. He wants to stop them from

getting closer to their inevitable death. At points in the story, Holden

cannot stop thinking about death which right afterwards leads him to think

about Allie. "In chapter 20, Holden, at his most depressed moment, is

walking at night in Central Park. His hair is wet, and he feels and he

feels ice particles on the back of his head. He starts thinking that he

will perhaps die of pneumonia, and in that moment recalls Allie's death and

the horror of his funeral" (Burrows 82-83). Allie's death has obviously

affected Holden in a way in which he cannot accept death and he always

thinks of death as change and hurt. He wants to save kids from the cliff in

the rye because he wished he had saved Allie.

 

      Allie's death was the beginning of Holden's changed outlook

concerning people, change and death. Throughout the story Holden shows his

lack of ability to communicate with others and to himself as a result of

his wanting to stay young and innocent. This desire stems from the pain he

felt from the loss of his brother.