Allie Caulfield

Allie Holden Caulfield is Holden Caulfield's younger brother who died of leukemia years before the events of the novel, but whose death profoundly shapes Holden Caulfield's psychological state and worldview. Holden Caulfield idealizes Allie as exceptionally intelligent, sensitive, and pure, remembering him with a combination of grief, guilt, and reverence. Allie's death seems to have been the pivotal traumatic event that initiated Holden Caulfield's depression and his inability to accept mortality, loss, and the inevitable decay of the world. Holden Caulfield is haunted by memories of Allie and by his own inability to prevent or protect Allie from death. He invokes Allie's memory repeatedly as a symbol of innocent goodness destroyed by an indifferent universe.