Catcher In The Rye Holden's Death Analysis

A key part of Holden’s emotional life involves his reaction to Allie’s death since “The thing was, I couldn't think of a room or a house or anything to describe the way Stradlater said he had to have... He used to laugh so hard at something he thought of at the dinner table that he just about fell off his chair.” (Page 43). People live for a while, but all too soon we all die. Allie did not choose it, but Holden thinks about James Castle, a skinny boy who jumped out the window at school and fell to his death. Holden himself entertains thoughts of a similar suicide. The decision to numb himself to his feelings about life is a decision to shut himself down emotionally so much that he is no longer truly living. It is a decision, however, that
He seen the effects of death on the living as well. Thus, he cannot do to Phoebe what Allie has done to them already. In other words, when he says he's crazy he seems to mean that he's acting oddly, or inconsistently, or stupidly, but not that he's actually going insane. And when he says he wishes he were dead, it likewise seems at first as if he's using the phrase as a teenage expression to make his emotions seem as intense to you as they seem to him. But as the novel progresses, it begins to become clear through hints and an intensification of Holden's own language that Holden really is on the verge of losing it, and really is seriously thinking of killing himself as the only way out of this world he can't control or
Though Holden needs closeness and love in order to renew his life, he keeps driving himself further away from it in order to avoid the inevitable loss. The more he wants to experience life, the more antisocial he becomes and the more he imagines death. This paradox is part of Holden’s life: there is pain in shutting down one's feelings, and there is pain in the risk of opening oneself up again. He impossibly tries to avoid pains that are inevitable for human mortals while they live. As he starts to become mature since he says “...I said, in this very mature voice and all "Oh, I have a few qualms, all right. Sure. . . but not too many. Not yet, anyway. I guess it hasn't really hit me yet. It takes things a while to hit me. All I'm doing right now is thinking about going home Wednesday. I'm a moron." "Do you feel absolutely no concern for your future, boy?" "Oh, I feel some concern for my future, all right. Sure. Sure, I do." I thought about it for a minute. "But not too much, I guess. Not too much, I guess." "You will," old Spencer said. "You will, boy. You will when it's too late." (Page 17) Since this is the beginning of the story it does show a sense of maturity through education however another example was Holden's interactions with his little sister Phoebe show his "maturity". He acts as a role model to her, or at the least