s own personal paradise. He does not want to finalize the fact that he has to concede it's innocence in the end. Towards the end of the book, Holden shows his desire for life to remain as it was by saying, "...certain things should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone." Holden does not want to join a world of phonies and greed, a world lacking in carelessness and irresponsibility. He won't, whether consciously or not, accept the fact that he has no choice.A final conflict in the life of Holden Caufield is his own self-destructiveness. That he is suicidal is never deliberately pointed out in the book but there are several instances in which it is implied. Mr. Antolini, being perhaps the only adult in the story that truly understands the seriousness of Holden's situation, at one point remarks, "I can very clearly see you dying nobly, one way or another, for some highly unworthy cause," possibly insinuating that Holden might not value his life enough to avoid throwing it away. Phoebe asks Holden about what he really likes about life, and all he can think of is a young boy named James Castle that commited suicide. At least one chapter finds him irrationally thinking he has cancer, and wandering around thinking he will certainly never make it to the other side of the street. One of the most significant allusions to suicide is when he walks around as though he has been shot, and afterward, in Central Park, he convinces himself that he has developed neumonia and will die very soon. He imagines his funeral, and the reaction of his parents and Phoebe. By the end of the novel, Holden has envisioned his own death by at least four different methods: neumonia, nuclear warfare, homicide, and suicide.All of Holden's problems appear to have been derived from change, one way or another, and they all end up leaving him confused and depressed. It is his problems with death and ...
