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Theme Of Death In Catcher In The Rye

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Death and the Loss of Innocence in the Catcher in the Rye In the novel, “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger, we meet Holden, a teenager who has gone through many traumatizing events throughout his life. Holden has jumped from school to school his whole life due to his flunking grades and the low value he put on education. When Holden was younger he had to deal with the death of his younger brother Allie which damaged him emotionally causing him to break all the windows in his garage with his bare hands. The last school he flunked out of was Pencey Prep a private all boys school. After getting kicked out, he decided to leave early and ran off to New York City alone where he rents out a cheap hotel room. While in New York, he has experiences that make him act a certain way do to PTSD issues with death. First of all, Holden feels some guilt from his younger brother Allie’s death. We can clearly see this when Holden thinks back on a memory he had when Allie was alive. “Allie heard us talking about it (going to the lake on bikes with BB guns), and he wanted to go, and I wouldn 't let him. I told him he was a child. So once in a while, now, when I get very depressed, I keep saying to him, ‘Okay. Go home and get your bike’...”(14.1). This shows that Holden is trying to change the past that he regrets by “telling Allie” what he would’ve wanted to hear. Holden does this when he gets “very depressed”. This wouldn’t help his depression unless a memory like this and the death

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