Relationships In J. D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye

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Catcher in the Rye is a story about relationships. Relationships can be anything from family, romance, or running into a stranger during a night out. After getting kicked out of numerous preparatory schools, the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, builds relationships to help cope with his subconscious depression and anxieties. Throughout the novel, Holden has this underlying stress about his life and his future. This may seem rather familiar to teenagers, who mask all the emotions inside, until there is an explosion of outbursts and emotional fatigue. The story of Holden Caulfield displays the challenges of growing up, and the universal struggle to be able to send and receive love. Through his fear of becoming his parents, creation of whimsical …show more content…
Among the lush and luxury, Holden can’t stand the privileged attitudes of his peers. During his conversation with Phoebe, about his aspirations, he knowledgeably tells the reader his perspective on his own father, “ ‘Well a lawyer-like Daddy and all.’... ‘All you do is make a lot of dough and play golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot shot.’ ” (p.190). Holden isn’t sure of what his father believes in anymore, is it just for the money- or is it to help the innocent? Fearing he will become a heartless rich man in the future Holden wishes to become a catcher in the rye, and help kids when they fall off cliffs just for the sake of saving the innocent. His mother similarly, has become an emotional wreck that Holden fears. In the opening pages, he says, “...my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything personal about them,” (p.1) and later, “Especially my mother… she’s nervous as hell. Half the time she’s up all night smoking cigarettes,” (p.175). After the loss of his brother, his entire family, and certainly his mother is having a time resuming her life, when she has overhanging sadness over the loss of her child. After Allie, Holden’s brother died, Holden smashed the windows to the garage. Whether he is aware or not, Holden hopes to keep the family together by keeping his mother free from think …show more content…
Faith in religion answers the question- what happens when we die? Holden has doubts about the whole spiel, “I can’t always pray when I feel like it. In the first place, I’m sort of an atheist,” (p.111). All Holden yearns for, is a sense of closure. He can visit the grave, but he knows that Allie’s soul has to be somewhere, but isn’t quite sure where, “When the weather’s nice, my parents go out quite frequently and stick a bunch of flowers on old Allie’s grave...I know it’s only his body and all that’s in the cemetery, and his soul is in heaven and all that crap, but I couldn’t stand it anyway,” (p,192). Holden’s also fantasizes about committing suicide, and for the sake of himself, he involves himself in a debate with a former classmate whether or not the suicide victim, Judas of Iscariot still capable of ascending into heaven, “I said I’d bet a thousand bucks that Jesus never sent old Judas to Hell. I still would, too, if I had a thousand bucks,” (p.111). If Holden didn’t have some assurance, he wouldn’t have the same perspectives on death and the end of
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