Catcher
The main character in The Catcher in the Rye by, J.D Salinger is a sixteen year old boy named Holden Caulfield. Caulfield is the narrator and tells his story in very close detail, the parts of his life and his environment that bother him the most. He faces these problems that prevent him from fully understanding why he is so depressed. His life revolves around his problems, and he seems helpless in escaping them. It appears that Holden's conflicts end up facing the issues of understanding death, and growing up, his battles with society while battling to find out who he really is.
One of the things Holden must manage with his inability to come to terms with death, in particular is his younger brother Allie who died of leukemia. Holden seems to have experienced a rather happy and carefree childhood; he lived with his siblings, Phoebe and Allie, and D.B, an older brother/role model to look up to. Then Holden suddenly is faced with the realization that he has to grow up, and learn to live without Allie. Every time he crosses a street, he feels like he will disappear, so each time he reaches a curb, he calls to Allie, pleading with his dead brother to let him make it to the other side. "Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie don't let me disappear. Please, Allie" (Page 198) He talks aloud to Allie to help him get through the suffering. Holden also continues to see Allie as one of the few things he likes about life, yet another devil that Holden avoids is the process of having to grow up. Throughout the book, he seems hesitant to develop any real ambitions or goals. He is a long-lasting failure at school. He refuses to associate himself with mature ways of living, and so he isolates himself from anyone his own age. This is all directly connected to Holden's sense of right and wrong and his personality conflicts with the social and moral values of his society.
Holden does not want to join a world of phonies, a world lacking...
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