Catcher In The Rye Grief Analysis

In the Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield portrays the second stage of grief, which is anger. Anger is when a person is not only angry with others, but with themselves. Holden occasionally still tends to show denial, but has moved more towards anger. Holden disconnects himself from reality in order to protect himself from grief. "[He] was only thirteen, and they were going to have [him] psychoanalyzed and all, because [he] broke all the windows in the garage. [He] don't blame them. [He] really don't. [He] slept in the garage the night he died, and [he] broke all the goddam windows with [his] fist, just for the hell of it. [He] even tried to break all the windows on the station wagon [they] had that summer, but [his] hand was already broken and everything by that time, and [he] couldn't do it."(39) It is common for teens to express their anger in
Holden and Stradlater began fighting because Stradlater "[gave Jane] the time in Ed Banky's goddam car,"(43) which upset Holden because he didn't like the idea of another guy sleeping with the girl he liked. After being hit to the floor by Stradlater, "[Holden] didn't even bother to get up. [He] just lay there on the floor for a while, and kept calling [Stradlater] a moron sonuvabitch. [He] was so mad, [he] was practically bawling."(45) It is very common for teenagers to have an emotional reaction to anger. Holden continues to hide his emotions behind anger, but eventually will become overwhelmed and have mental breakdown at any point. Holden is supposed to mirror the idea of an average teenager. Like most teenagers, Holden is going through the stages of grief due to a big loss. One day "[Holden] started talking, sort of loud, to Allie. [He] do that sometimes when [he] get very depressed...."(98) Holden continues to deny the fact that Allie is dead and expresses that denial by talking so calmly and casually about