Death, kill and die.
The title itself: The catcher in the rye.
The catcher in the rye.
Death.
In the book “The catcher in the rye” Death is mentioned several times throughout the story, ranging in use. The main character Holden Caulfield brings up death several times whilst mentioning his dead, younger brother Allie.
He talks about him a few times the first time being when he mentions Allie’s Baseball mitt as a subject prone to description for a work of English Holden is doing for his roommate, Ward Stradlater. “(…) he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them on it so that he'd have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up at bat. He's dead now.“
A few other quotes are worth mentioning, when Holden feels his faith in humanity lost “All the visitors could get in their cars and turn on their radios and all and then go someplace nice for dinner – everybody except Allie. I couldn't stand it.” Because in this instant his brother has been buried in the cemetery and will never again be able to just get out of the rain and go home and proceed to daily activities.
The character Holden Caulfield already has Allie’s death in relation to that subject and he is also scared by another event, which happened at Elkton hills. This event was the suicide of bully victim, James Castle. James Castle’s death instigated anger and also horror in Holden as he enjoyed Castle’s clumsy stories in class and felt sorry he died a noble death for an unworthy cause.
He also felt very close to death for the first time. He could hear the body hit the ground, see the blood and mess and teeth. He had an actual visual and physical contact with the atrocity, which had befallen his friend. It isn’t mentioned anywhere in the book that they are friends I am just assuming they were on good terms as Castle is wearing Holden’s sweater on the day he died because Holden had lent it.
Also the character says a great many times “It kills me” as a phrase to say hi is bursting with laugher because he is a very pessimistic person with an obscure view on the world.
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