Examples Of Grief In Catcher In The Rye

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Erick Costilla
Mrs. Maggert
8th hour
3 November, 2016 [01 month 2016]
The G grief of Holden Caulfield

In J.D. Salinger's “The Catcher in the Rye” [book titles always get italicized, not underlined or quote marks] he discusses the lonely and confused life of holden caulfield. Capitalization errors. It was also the process in which Holden grieves about the death of his brother. Although not the whole book was about his brother's death, it plays a big role on Holden's part because of the effects of Holden's grief over the death of his brother, Allie, and how he needs to get some kind of closure or find a way to move on and live his life. After Holden's brother died, Holden has showed his grief in many ways. He has not been himself to other …show more content…

“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, 224)” This quote is very see things to leave out of your paper handout significant in his grieving process because it deals with Holden's relationship with his brother and the denial of him growing up. Past the cliff refers the adult world and this means he wants to “catch” all the kids from growing up. By “catching” them he means stopping. He doesn't want kids growing up because he fears they lose their innocence because Holden is scared of growing up for two reasons. One reason is Allie's death as a child and another would be the fear that all children lose their innocence in the adult world. Two important stages of grief play in this quote which are denial and depression. First off he wants to protect children by “catching” them from falling into the adult world, but he is in denial because he is on his way on becoming an adult. This has forced him to be more stressed and it's being hard on him because he will be left into a depression. What is really hard for him to understand is that he has to change, that everyone has to grow up sometime because it's apart of life. He has yet to figure out that no matter how much he denies growing up, he can't escape the cycle of

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