Catcher In The Rye Quote Analysis

In the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield learns to cope and accept the death of his brother, Allie. He does this by being unable to verbally express the loss of his brother and this leads to a suicide attempt. After his death, Holden continually fails in order to maintain the positive image of his brother. He then divulges to Phoebe that he wishes to catch children before falling off a cliff, and these children are a supplement for Allie as he was unable to save him. The novel ends with Holden accepting that he is unable to save people from falling and can not save people from the pain he knows all too well. Throughout the novel, Holden learns to accept that everybody must fall at some point and he can not prevent it, which leads
Holden reads a letter he wrote to his history teacher regarding his grade in the class: “... It is all right with me if you flunk me though as I am flunking everything else except english anyway…” (page 12). This passage is significant because he has given permission to his teacher to flunk him, by saying it would be “all right” with Holden if his teacher were to flunk him. The way he says “all right” suggests he may be looking for pity, however, the fact that he is already failing almost every other one of his classes suggests he knew that this one grade would not make a difference. This could mean that he is just trying to reassure the teacher and to make sure he feels no guilt about “flunking” him. However, he is also quite casual about the whole situation, and this suggests that it is one he is familiar with. This could mean that he has failed before and could possibly feel the need to fail, and this inferred as he gives him permission to flunk him. This connects to Allie as he feels he has let Allie down and must continue to fail in order maintain the idealistic image of