Luke is a very loving father, and he seems to show the most love to his daughter because she is the youngest, she comes and visits most often, and for the longest periods of time. Luke says “And if one of my sons had come to me that night, I would have phoned the police and told them to meet us with an ambulance at the top of the hill” (Dubus 117). Luke expresses that it is not that he loves his sons any less; but that he could bear to watch his sons take the punishment they would receive if they had done what their sister did. Even though he is protecting his daughter he is leaving a mark on the young man’s family. Luke doesn’t know that no one will find out about what happened.
His mother, Gail, protected him the best she could. David even had a baby sitter to look after him, Marie Little Soldier. However, David as a child simply thought she was the housekeeper. As an innocent 12 year old David thought “she was sexy” (p.26). David also looked up to his uncle, Frank, as an athlete, handsome and a genuine war hero.
Allie, Holden's young brother who died several years beforehand is a major symbol throughout the novel. When Holden remembers incidents from his past involving him, his attitude changes, such as when he writes the composition about Allie's baseball glove or when Holden remembers breaking his hand after punching all of the windows after Allie’s passing. "I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddamn windows with my fist, just for the hell of it”, (Salinger 39). He feels that Allie was one of the few people who was normal in a world full of phonies. More importantly, Allie represents the innocence and childhood that Holden strives to find throughout his three-day journey.
In Frank’s younger years, he has been very obedient with his parents. When his parents tell him what to do, he would do as instructed without questioning (though he was very curious and asked a lot of questions). In the quote you can tell Frank felt disgusted with his father. This is one of the first times the reader will see Frank starting to form opinions for
Because his parents have died in a car accident, Ponyboy lives with his brothers Darry and Sodapop. Darry repeatedly accuses Ponyboy of lacking common sense, but Ponyboy is a reliable youth. Throughout the novel, Ponyboy struggles with class division, violence, innocence, and familial love. He matures over the course of the novel, eventually realising the importance of friendship and the feeling of respect. Though he is only fourteen years old, he understands the way his social group functions and the role each group member plays.
Holden keeps Allie alive through the baseball mitt; it is a constant reminder of who Allie was and what he liked. Holden had a great amount of love and respect for Allie. The baseball mitt helps Holden get through the death of his brother. Holden carried the mitt with him in his suitcase, which shows how important Allie was in his life. Holden was only thirteen when Allie passed away, the loss of his brother affected him greatly.
He has close friends and family, such as Jane and Phoebe, whom he fears will also lose their innocence. Throughout the novel, Holden’s loss of innocence in represented by his childhood friend and crush, Jane, the Museum of natural history, and his red hunting hat. As one of Holden’s closest friends during his innocent childish stages in life, Jane Gallagher has a big involvement in his inability to let go of the past. As children Holden and Jane were very close. As Holden begins to mature slowly, he always remembers Jane as an innocent person because that is how he knows her.
He is socially inept, awkward with people and has a set of ideals by which he lives which indicates that he is suffering from depression. Holden is suffering from a mental disorder which is caused by the death of his brother Allie of which he has not allowed himself to grief properly. In Chapter 5 Holden talks about his brother Allie and what he did after he died. He says “I was only 13 and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage”. Holden narrates that he smashed windows of the garage and cars, and he literally lost it.
The night of his death, Holden broke all the windows in the garage and had to be hospitalized. Ever since Allie’s death, Holden has tried to deny it. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is about an adolescent (Holden Caulfield) getting kicked out of school and living in New York alone for a few days. In that short time, Holden learns to accept reality as it is, thus accepting the death of his brother.
I believe that Danny suffers from a depression related illness because in the book on the first couple pages the text reads “Behind his back he grips his left wrist digs his finger nails into his skin until a sharp pain floods his mind, makes him feel real.” This quote shows how he isolates himself which leaves him unable to feel any emotions. But in order to feel real he needs to feel emotions. The only emotion he is willing to feel is pain so he inflicts it onto himself. The greatest emotion he’s ever felt in his life time is the throbbing pain he felt when his father left him. He conceals his emotions so that he never has to feel such a vivid image of pain again.