What Does Holden Say About Allie's Death

Holden is talking about protecting the children so they will not experience the cruelty of the adult world. If he catches the children before they fall, he will preserve their innocence and keep them from the cruelties of the adult world. Holden’s only desire and goal in life is to be the catcher in the rye because is the only job that is appealing to him where he can shows his love and protection for childhood innocence, “That’s all I’d do all day. I‘d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be” (173).

Holden compare his imagination to a poem by Robert Burns called “If a body meet a body coming though the rye”. Holden Picturing all these kids playing on a field of rye and Holden is standing near the edge of the cliff to catch them from falling. In fact, Holden said, “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game on the field of rye and all. I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.” In reality, he wants to stop kids from entering into the adult world losing his innocence, which Holden is afraid of because according to him kids are “real” meaning that they will always speak their mind.

“God he was a nice kid, though.” (Salinger, pg. 38). Due to Alle being taken away so young, Holden finds it as if his death was unfair and he didn’t deserve to die leading Holden hopelessly trying to fight the inevitability of growing old and death. Holden wants to maintain as pure as Allie who died at 11 meant he was uncorrupted and as innocent a child can ever be. “He was two years younger than I was, but ;about fifty times as intelligent.” (Salinger, pg.38). Holden begins to yearn for Holden feels not growing up will mean he can be the next best Allie, innocent and uncorrupted reaching what Holden believes is Allie is, a god. Disorting Holden’s thinking leaving him with unhealthy obsession with Allie. Leaving Holden with the belief that children are the only beings of being capable of innocence and pure, thus skewing Holden’s

Holden wants to be the catcher in the rye and save the children from falling off the cliff. This cliff, however, is the real world, and Holden himself is afraid of it so he wants to protect children from it. This is also demonstrated when Holden visits his sister 's school and sees swears written on the wall. This makes Holden very mad, "It drove me damn near crazy. I thought of how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they 'd wonder what the hell it meant…But I rubbed it out anyway, finally"(201). Holden was able to protect the children for a short while but a few moments later he sees the same thing written on the wall again. Only this time it is scratched in with a knife or something and Holden is unable to rub it away like before and realizes "It 's hopeless, anyway…it 's impossible" (202) he indicates here that growing up and facing certain reality is inevitable. Holden finally realizes that he can 't protect the kids from the real world when he watches Phoebe ride a carrousel at the zoo. "All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring…this thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let

Holden experiences extreme difficulty accepting his current realities and one of the main factors causing this is the lasting negative impact his brother Allies death had on his life. Firstly, when Holden decides to leave his school, he tells readers , “I don’t care if it’s a sad goodbye or a bad goodbye, but when I leave a place, I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse” (Salinger, 4). Holden’s need for closure is evident in this quote. When Allie died, it was very unexpected and he was not prepared to let him go, resulting in his denial that his brother is actually

2.Holden vs Society: Holden hates the way children lose their innocence, and how they lose their innocence as they get older, and the way they are exposed to profanity and sexuality continually even as they are kids. He wants to be the catcher in the rye, who catches kids from falling off a cliff, in a children’s nursery rhymes. This rhyme is ironic, in that the poem itself has sexual connotations. Falling off the cliff, represents kids losing their innocence, and he wants to be the “catcher in the rye” who stops kids from losing their innocence.

After the incident, Holden was hospitalised, given psychological treatment, and missed Allie’s funeral. This scene shows that Holden cannot deal with his emotions very well. For example, Holden prefers to deal with his emotions physically, by breaking all the windows, than mentally. In addition, The loss of Allie brought Holden into depression especially because he was not given a lot of time to mourn before being re-enrolled to school. His depression disconnects him from people, and every attempt to try to regain connections has left him with trust issues.

First, I think the Rye Field is a major symbol in this novel because pg 173, Holden told Phoebe about what he is picturing and Holden said “ I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.” The quote is saying that Holden doesn’t want himself and everyone who entered the adulthood so he is catching everyone who wants to act like an adult but Holden won't let them act like an adults. I think that Holden is a little brat. He wants to act like he is a little kid and doesn't want to grow up as an adult. He thinks that he isn't responsible enough to be treated as an adult because Holden deals with alcohol, sex, and violence. I think maybe that’s the reason he isn’t responsible enough to take care of himself. Even though he is a kid, he thinks that he can get away with everything when he is treated as a kid more than an

While talking with Phoebe about a poem by Robert Burns, Holden explains, “I keep picturing all these little kids playing…And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff…I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff” (Salinger 173). Holden shows signs of being a hero many times, including this time. Holden does not want the children to hurt themselves if they fall off the cliff, so he will be there in order to catch them once they fall. Instead of injuring themselves, Holden rather hurt himself in order to save them. Furthermore, by being “The Catcher in the Rye,” Holden is able to protect children, especially Phoebe, from the realities of the outside world. At this age, Holden doesn’t want them to learn about violence, phoniness, and other aspects of adulthood that is superfluous. He fears that if they start to learn some of these characteristics of adulthood, they will lose their innocence as a child; but, he wants to maintain their adolescence and

Since the death of his brother, Holden has clung to stability. The only things in his life that are stable, are his siblings. Although his brother DB lives in California, he is still there for Holden “He’s in hollywood, That isn’t too far from this crumby place, and he comes and visits me practically every week” ( Salinger 1). Holden holds on to the last thing of his family that is the same from before Allie died. He has his brother and sister, and always will. Holden, when leaving Pencey, wants to talk to his sister. “Anyway, she was somebody you always felt like talking to on the phone. But I was too afraid that my parents would answer” (Salinger 68). He

Coping with Allie’s death is extremely traumatic for Holden and he clings dearly to memories of his younger brother. When Holden expresses regret for not taking Allie to shoot BB guns with Bobby, he is blaming himself for not being able to save Allie’s life. The fact that Allie does not get upset with Holden makes him feel all the more guilty.

During the first encounter, Holden meets with Phoebe in her room, back in his family’s apartment, and Phoebe tells Holden to name something he’d “like to be” (172) for career choice. Holden responds, “I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be” (173). His description of what that means, is he would stand in a field of rye, on the edge of a cliff, and wait for children to come running towards him. Then, before they could run off the cliff, he would catch them and replace them safely back into the field. His vision of the children falling off the cliff is quite literal, but their fall actually symbolizes what Holden see’s as an impending death to all children - becoming an adult. And thus, through this moment, we see how Allie’s death has affected him most. He was robbed of his innocence at too young of an age and because this had caused him so much pain, he could not bare to see it happen to anybody else. That, in turn, is what caused him to resist the adult world so thoroughly. At the end of the book, Holden has one final moment with Phoebe, in which his transformation finally happens. When they go to a carrousel that is part of a city fair, Phoebe goes on to ride and Holden watches from a bench. As he sits

This quote shows how Holden feels about Allie. Holden views his brother as an image of perfection, since he is dead and Holden cannot see any of Allie's flaws. Allie died at the age of ten, and Holden thus sees him as dying while he was still an innocent child. Since Holden has no contact with children other than his sister Phoebe, who herself has an urgent desire to become an adult, Holden idolizes Allie. He protects his brother as an image of innocence that he will forever be able to remember.

Throughout the novel, he displays a fondness of an unrealistic and simplistic view of the world. He has this “utopian” fantasy about how he would be the guardian of childhood innocence, and it symbolizes how he would save kids from growing up and becoming fake sanctimonious adults. He would be “standing on the edge of some crazy cliff… [catching] everybody if they [started] to go over the cliff…That’s all [he’d] do all day. [He’d] just be the catcher in the rye.”(Salinger, 224-225). Holden would stop the kids from falling over the cliff into adulthood. To Holden, becoming an adult is the ultimate downfall (no pun intended), and his idealistic view of stopping the innocent kids from falling off the cliff is displaying of his oversimplified perception of the world and how life is supposed to

With this dream Holden is escaping into the adult world as he thinks about marriage and supporting his wife with a job. Holden demonstrates how he’d rather be a child who gets to fantasize about the adult world but never really enter it. When Phoebe, Holden’s little sister mentions their dad the first thing Holden results to leaving Colorado. Just when Holden is faced with a real life situation like how mad his dad will be, he says he’ll be away (Salinger 184). Those who disagree might state that Holden matured when he claims “I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff” (Salinger 191). Holden is referring to children that are not paying attention, playing in a field of rye and happen to fall off. Some would argue that Holden wanting to be a Catcher in the Rye or save children is a sign of maturity and Holden actually wanting to enter adulthood to take on this position. However, while Holden is at the carousel with Phoebe he notices children trying to grab for the golden ring and acknowledges