How Does J.D. Salinger present Holden's ''separateness'' from other people in 'Catcher In The Rye'? In 'The Catcher In The Rye' Salinger sets about making Holden appear separate from everyone else
How Does J.D. Salinger present Holden’s ‘‘separateness’’ from other people in ‘Catcher In The Rye’?
In ‘The Catcher In The Rye’ Salinger sets about making Holden appear separate from everyone else. He does this through a variety of methods. One of the ways in which Salinger shows this separateness is through Holden’s relationships and encounters with his family and friends.
Another method that Salinger uses is that usually whenever Holden attempts to contact someone they are either not there or don’t answer the phone, this give us the feeling that Holden is by himself, alone, separate from everyone else. Also the fact that Holden says ‘my address book only has about three people in it’ gives us again the impression that Holden is disconnected from society.
Holden’s apparent desire to be separated from the majority of his family and friends appears to have been triggered by the death of his younger brother Allie. From Allie’s there has been a downward spiral in Holden’s relationships, as he begins to avoid contact with others and isolate himself more. The reason I believe this is because we can see how immense his anger is after Allie’s death, ‘I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist’. The death of Allie has become like an awakening to Holden, and has alerted him how precious childhood innocence is, when Holden comes to this realisation he convinces himself to do everything within his power to protect the innocence of himself and those around him, to protect them from what he sees as a false adult world. Although Holden clearly fails to protect himself, as he falls into all sorts of situations which hardly boasts of innocence and virtue, such as his encounter with the prostitute, his frequent usage of profanity and the fact that he smokes and drinks rather heavily at times ‘I was getting drunk as hell’. However this does not stop Holden from having a very strong desire to protect the innocence of those around him, such as when he visited Phoebe’s school and tried to rub out all the profanity, and after the prostitute incident, ‘I felt like jumping out of the window. I probably would’ve done it; too, if I’d been sure somebody’d cover me up as soon as I landed. I didn’t want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me while I was all gory’. This can be interpreted as Holden still trying to protect the innocence of those around him, as even in his death he still wants to preserve the innocence of those around him, as even in death he still wishes to protect the innocence of those who would see his gory body.
