What he doesn't realize is that he too wants to be someone else and that he wants to live in his fantasies. In chapter 14, the pimp Maurice comes into Holden's hotel room and beats him up for extra money. After Maurice and Sunny leave, Holden imagines himself shot and bloody, walking down the stairs carrying an automatic and shooting Maurice until he's dead. Then he imagines that Jane is aiding his wounds while he is lying in bed. This is a typical movie scene and in it, Holden is a character who is tough and cool like the movie heroes. This represents the same thing that the name Jim Steele represents. It represents toughness which is nothing like what Holden really is.
Another major fantasy of Holden involves hitchhiking west. He says that he"ll get any job as long as he doesn't know anyone and no one knows him. This shows us how much Holden is rejecting society and reality. Holden also mentions that he"ll become a deaf-mute so that he won't have to have those "god damn stupid useless conversations" with anybody and here he is again, telling himself that he doesn't need society, that he doesn't want to talk or listen to society anyway. The part where he says that people will have to write things on paper if they want to talk to him tells us that he wants society to make an effort to accept him while he waits patiently.
One of the main reasons why Holden experiences his mental break down is the death of his brother Allie. A few other reasons are the thought of Jane loosing her innocence. During his mental break down, he keeps questioning whether death is the better choice even thought he fears death. At one point, he says that he wouldn't mind riding a bomb as it plummeted towards the ground. This shows him reassuring himself that death is the right path and that death is what he really wants. The closest Holden got to committing suicide was when he said that he felt like jumping off the window as long as somebody would cover him up as soon as he landed.
