ABSTRACT
The same might be said of three of the most iconic adolescent characters of the post-war period, Holden Caulfi eld of The Catcher in the Rye, Jim Stark of Rebel Without a Cause, and Esther Greenwood of The Bell Jar. Signifi cantly, these are all American, though just as central to British culture. The Catcher in the Rye opens with Holden thrown out of his expensive private school, but if he ends up on the streets this is only a temporary situation and even he concedes that his parents are “nice and all” (1). Yet Holden has known tragedy, with the death of his adored younger brother, Allie, three years earlier of leukaemia. Holden says that he feels sorry for his parents but “especially my mother, because she still isn’t over my brother Allie,” (139) implying that his father, younger sister, and older brother are “over” his death. We might doubt this, and clearly Holden himself is not “over” it, yet his problems, whatever they are, seem to be occasioned rather than caused by Allie’s death.
