catcher in teh rye

" (155) .
             As stated in the last paragraph, Holden despised the thought of burying the dead. He believed that their memories should be preserved forever like the Egyptian mummies. "The Egyptians are extremely interesting to us today for various reasons. Modern science would still like to what the secret ingredients were that the Egyptians used when they wrapped up dead people so that their faces would not rot for innumerable centuries. This interesting riddle is still quite a challenge to modern scientists in the twentieth century." (11) Holden was fascinated with the way the mummies were preserved. " "You know how the Egyptians buried their dead?" [He] asked the one kid. "Naa." "Well, you should. It's very interesting. They wrapped their faces up in these cloths that were treated with some special chemical. That way they could be buried in their tombs for thousands of years and their faces wouldn't rot or anything. Nobody knows how to do it except the Egyptians. Even modern science." " (203) By the end Holden realized that Allie's youth had been preserved through his death. .
             During his troubled days, Phoebe was the only one who was able to communicate with Holden on a personal basis. She understood his dilemma because Allie's death had affected her as well. Phoebe was the only one who cared for him and he didn't want her to lose her youth. "[They] had the poor salesman guy going crazy. Old Phoebe tried on about twenty pairs, and each time the poor guy had to lace one shoe all the way up. It was a dirty trick, but it killed old Phoebe." (197) The irony was that he believed the only way to preserve the youth was to die, but Phoebe was the last person he"d want to see dead. .
             Verbal and symbolic expressions of death were shown recurrently through Holden's speech. Salinger utilizes these expressions to depict Holden's viewpoint on suicide and death in general. The meanings of these words are exposed to the reader in a subtle way.