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The impact of death on a family
Response to loss of a family member
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The Catcher in the Rye and The Glass Menagerie
The person someone becomes is influenced by the losses they have experienced in their life. In Catcher in the Rye the main character Holden Caulfield is devastated by the loss of his younger brother Allie to leukemia. The loss of Allie never leaves Holden’s mind. It changes his perception of the world. In The Glass Menagerie Amanda Wingfield’s husband abandons her and their two children Tom and Laura. For Amanda the only way to deal with the loss is to escape into a dream world. She forces this delusion onto Tom and Laura Loss of anything a loved one, a friend or a cherished possession can affect the way a person feels. Loss can change a person’s reactions or attitude toward something. This may cause the person to change the way they live their life or the decisions they make. Loss leaves an impression on a person.
Holden Caulfield is tormented by Allie’s death. The night Allie died Holden slept in the garage and broke all the windows with his fists. This was the only way Holden could deal with the loss of Allie. Allie becomes the model of the ideal person for Holden. Throughout Catcher in the Rye whenever Holden talks about Allie it’s what a great person he was. He describes Allie as extremely intelligent, someone you would have liked and as someone that never got angry. Everyone Holden meets or sees he compares them to this image of Allie but almost no one meets the standards. As Holden is eating breakfast in a diner he sees two nuns come in and helps them with their suitcases. He thinks nothing of them until he notices that their suitcases seem inexpensive. Holden talks about how he hates it when someone has cheap suitcases and how he can just get to hate someone for having them.
Holden never gets over Allie’s death. It causes him to become restless. He is searching for something to replace the gap in his life that Allie left. He looked up to Allie. Whenever Holden finds something that can replace Allie he discovers flaws about it. Holden feels that if he finds something he is betraying Allie. He never truly finds something to fill the void. When Phoebe asks Holden to name something he likes a lot he can’t think of anything besides Allie. Phoebe says Allie doesn't really count because he’s dead. Holden argues “I can still like him, though, can’t I? Just because somebody’s dea...
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...inessman. She blames her husband for her children’s bad qualities. When Tom stays out late or smokes Amanda says “you got it from you father”.
Holden and Amanda were both traumatized by the loss they experienced. Holden’s view of the world changes because of Allie’s death. In Holden’s mind no one will ever live up to Allie. Holden can’t see good in the world anymore. There is something wrong with everything when matched up against Allie. Even though this is true Holden is on an endless quest to find something that can replace Allie. The loss of Allie causes Holden to feel only something negative can result from change. The loss of her husband throws Amanda into a fantasy world. She will not accept that she should be anything other than the southern lady she was brought up to be, that Laura is peculiar or that Tom is not a budding businessman, and that she herself might be in some ways responsible for the sorrows and flaws of her children. Loss affects people in different ways. It can tear them apart or make them stronger. For both Holden and Amanda loss forces them to struggle with their emotions in an attempt to find ways of dealing with the loss.
In the novel, Allie has an immense impact on Holden through his journey. Allie is Holden’s brother that died of Cancer when Holden was young. Holden is always sad about Allie’s death and is always thinking about Allie. Allie’s impact on Holden’s life sparks from Holden feeling like Allie missed out on opportunities.Allie also brings Holden a sense of guilt and also pain because he feels that Allie is missing out and that it is unfair for him to experience life. Holden can never get over Allies death and Allie because of his guilt that stems from his beliefs of Allie’s inability to experience life. When talking to Phoebe he says, “I Know he’s dead? Dont you think I know that? I can still like him, though, can't I? Just because somebody's dead, you don't just stop liking them, for God’s sake-especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that’re alive and all” (Salinger 171). This quote shows Holden’s reluctance to not forget Allie, and move on with his life not living in regret of Allie’s...
There is one universal truth that will exist through out all of time and space that affects all that live to experience it. That truth is known as grief. We all experience grief, and for Holden Caulfield, grief is a major aspect of his life, the force that drives him to do everything he does in the novel, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. There are seven stages to this emotion known as grief: denial, depression, anger, bargaining, guilt, reconstruction, and finally, acceptance. There are many parts in the novel that could have influenced Holden’s grief, but the main one that most people who read the novel have figured it out was the death of his little brother Allie. The root to Holden’s grief lies with his brother which cause Holden’s to act and change the way he does in the novel.
Imagine if your best friend or someone close to you suddenly dies of a fatal disease. The death of this person would physically and mentally inflict trauma. All though the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is a grieving seventeen year old because he endures a traumatic experience at the age of 13. His 11 year old brother, Allie, dies of leukemia, and this affects Holden throughout the novel. It causes him to yearn for his innocence and childhood back because he wants to return to the stage in his life when there are no worries. He realizes that it is not realistic to become a child again, and he begins to accept the fact that he must grow up and set an example for his sister, Phoebe. Growing up with the loss of a close brother, Holden wants to be a protector of all innocence, and later in the novel, he begins to notice he must find a solution to his traumatic experiences in order to become successful in his lifetime.
Allie, Holden's young brother who died several years earlier, was a major symbol throughout the story. When Holden remembers incidents from his past involving Allie, his attitude changes, such as when he writes the composition about Allie's baseball glove or when Holden broke his hand after punching all of the windows after Allie died. "I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it". (39) He feels that Allie was one of the few people who were not phony in a world full of phonies. More importantly, Allie represents the innocence and childhood that Holden strives to find throughout his three-day journey. In Holden's opinion, Allie represents the purity that Holden looks for in the world. Holden admits that he admires Allie more than he admires Jesus, and even prays to Allie at one point, rather than Jesus. Allie is Holden's role model, whom he judges the rest of the world according to. When Allie dies, it creates turbulence in Holden's life.
for Allie and knew that if anyone could save him, Allie could. During one incident, Holden
One of the most impactful events in Holden’s past is the death of his brother. Jos death definitely took a big piece of Holden’s innocence. One of the main causes of his depression is the death of Allie’s and it had a tremendous impact on his life. Allie inset rarely mentioned, his passing had a great impact on Holden. Leukemia took is younger brothers innocents and this deeply saddened him and he promise himself to that he would do whatever he could not to let that happen to other innocent kids. “I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it. It was a very stupid thing to do, I’ll admit, but I hardly didn’t even know I was doing it, and you didn’t know Allie”
Holden Caulfield, the narrator of The Catcher in the Rye, is a troubled man who does not have everything going right for him. He shows obvious signs of depression and a few symptoms of an anxiety disorder. Throughout the book he keeps thinking about his brother Allie, who passed away. The only reasonable explanation for his mental illnesses is that he misses Allie, and he does not know how to function normally again. Everything he does reminds him of Allie in some sort of way. Mental illness is very common in someone who is suffering from the loss of a love one, but it is in no way a normal act of a teenager.
Immediately after Allie’s death, Holden changes immensely. His very first act after Allie died was smashing all his garage windows with his fist. Following this aggressive act, he becomes a recluse and judges every person he crosses to- I assume- Allie, because of how much he still reminded Holden of innocence, and will for the rest of his life. Cynthia Barron states, “Holden is sixteen… in a unique position, caught in the limbo between childhood and adulthood. Thus faced with their inability to adapt to an adult world that is hypocritical and corrupt, both boys seek a return to the realm of childhood” (Barron). In my personal opinion, i believe that he ...
Characters May and Holden experienced the death of a loved one as teenagers. These catastrophes had a negative effect on their lives and caused them to have changes in their usual behavior, episodes of sadness, and suicidal thoughts.
However, his feelings suggest that the true reason for his depression is his loss of innocence. When he was 13 years old, he lost his little brother Allie to leukemia. Allie meant a lot to Holden. He even became a symbol in the book. Allie is the one who keeps Holden from falling off the cliff, he’s the reason that he hasn’t lost his innocence yet.
Holden feels as if he is stuck in his 13 year old self. Although he is aging he isn’t necessarily maturing the way his classmates and other people are around him. This is due to the fact that he never received closure when Allie died. When he starts picturing his own funeral because he might get pneumonia and die, he remembers D.B. telling him about his brother's funeral. He stated, “I wasn’t there. I was still in the hospital. I had to go to the hospital and all after I hurt my hand” (Salinger 171). Since he never attended the funeral he never got to say his final goodbyes to the one person he truly loved. Holden feels as if he can’t connect with anyone else in the world like he did with Allie. If he did then he would most likely push them away, so he wouldn’t have to experience the trauma of loss again, because it greatly impacted his life the first time. The trauma Holden experienced when he was younger resulted in him not being able to form stronger relationships with people which made him more depressed and
Holden?s loneliness is apparent in more than just his lack of friends. His loneliness is made apparent by the way he misses his deceased brother, Allie. Holden makes several references to Allie and how the two used to get along and acted more like friends than brothers. Holden deeply misses his brother and even talks to him out loud to comfort himself because he still feels a void inside of him. Holden misses his brother more than others because Holden never had the final closure to his brother?s death, Holden never went to Allie?s funeral, and because Holden didn?
Events in Holden's life lead him to become depressed. Holden's depression centers on Allie. The manner that Holden sees himself and how he sees others leads him to be expelled from school. The speaker expresses, "One thing about packing depressed me a little," (51). Holden expresses these feelings when he packs his bags after being notified that he is expelled. Holden leaves school and heads for New York City, where he finds himself to be more lonely and depressed than ever. He is all alone and he laments, " What I really felt like doing was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out of the window," (104). Holden says this while he is all alone in his motel room. He is too ashamed of himself to return home, he knows that his mother will be upset and his father will be angry with him. He also adds that " I wasn’t feeling sleepy or anything, but I was feeling sort of lousy. Depressed and all, I almost wished I was dead," (90). Holden states this during one of the first nights that he is staying in New York. Holden expresses many thoughts of depression.
The Catcher in the Rye is about a young boy named Holden Caulfield who is going
Holden Caulfield suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder throughout the course of the novel. In fact, the root of all his problems come from Allie’s passing; he died from leukemia. Holden used to be extremely close with him and his imminent death changed his entire life and psyche. Holden seems to relive the event of his beloved little brother Allie’s death over and over. “What is clear, however, is that many of the symptoms Holden displays in the course of the novel mirror the classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. The death of his younger brother, Allie was a traumatic event in Holden Caulfield’s life and is perhaps at the root of the depression he battles in the novel. The death of a sibling can trigger post-traumati...