Analysis Of Catcher In The Rye By J. D. Salinger

A person’s mental health greatly impacts how they handle certain situations. Most of the time, it can be unstable and cause them to do things they normally wouldn’t do. A loved one’s death can significantly affect a person’s mental health, leading to mental and emotional instability. In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the main character, Holden, still struggles with mental instability as a result of the loss of his younger brother. He wanders around the streets of New York trying to find the person he once was when his brother was alive. He loved his brother a great deal, and his death ultimately became the downfall of Holden’s mental stability. He is put into a situation he doesn’t know how to handle well, resulting in a mental breakdown …show more content…
For Holden, isolation is a feeling that he associates with a lot. He thinks of so many people to call up when he’s wandering on the streets alone, but contacts not one, not two, not three, but zero people in the end. Holden narrates, “The first thing I did when I got off at Penn Station, I went into this phone booth. I felt like giving somebody a buzz … So I ended up not calling anybody. I came out of the booth, after about twenty minutes or so, and got my bags and walked over to that tunnel where the cabs are and got a cab,” (59). Holden is in need of a person to be there for him, but he can’t reach out because he doesn’t know how to. He’s lost a precious person in his life, and now he doesn’t know what to do to feel like he’s loved again. If Allie hadn’t had leukemia and passed away, Holden wouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place. This situation actually did happen, however, which means that Allie is now watching over Holden. Allie is almost like a warning to Holden to keep his mortality in tact and not risk his life. At the same time, Allie is also a person whom Holden thinks of when he needs a boost in confidence or when he’s dealing with a tough situation at