The consequences in behaviour and social observations of two main characters due to traumatic experiences.
When examining literature an important aspect is continuously present, the aspect of traumas and the effect of it on present lives. Traumas seem to be noticed through the way characters act and react in the novels Death of a salesman by Arthur Miller and The catcher in the rye by J.D. Salinger. In The catcher in the rye Holden is the protagonist. He has experienced the death and loss of his younger brother Allie, which still has a tremendous impact on him. Ever since, Holden has not been able to deal with this traumatic event and has partly therefore had the tendency to escape from reality. In Death of a salesman Biff is one of the main characters. His traumatic experience is related to the event of finding his father, Willy, cheating his wife with an other woman. Due to the fact that Biff extremely looked up to his father, the disappointment of finding his father cheating, made him lose faith in his father and through that also in himself. As a result he never went to the university he was supposed to go, and never achieved anything in his life until he became aware of it in his thirties. .
Through the development of the story Holden clearly illustrates having an immense lack of responsibility due to the traumatic experience. One of these examples is that he is not able to come forward for mistakes he makes, for instance, when he lost the team equipment in the beginning of the novel. Secondly, he does not want to grow up and become an adult, and by this not having to deal with the responsibilities of adulthood. As a result of this he hides away in his unrealistic world where there are no worries. He has ideas about his future with Sally which are completely unrealistic, and therefore he loses grip on himself. " we could live somewhere with a brook and all and, later on, we could get married or something.