Holden Caulfield is one of the best-known antiheroes in American literature, since his debut in the book Catcher in the Rye, published in 1951. According to the definition of "antihero" ', the character he is in many ways the antithesis of a hero, which Holden certainly fits in perfectly. If you look at many of his interactions, he is incapable of reacting the way the audience hopes a hero would react. However, she fantasizes about being the saving grace for children. He wants to keep them away from danger. He wants to be known as "the catcher in the rye," but fails to follow through on this heroic fantasy. He certainly doesn't have the noble characteristics that most heroes possess, such as honesty, courage, strength and resolve. In reality it is exactly the opposite of all these things. Holden can be seen as: a perpetual liar, a coward, rather weak for his size and plagued by passive inaction. These characteristics may result from an incident in one's life that the individual was never fully able to overcome. Difficult situations are part of everyone's life, but it is the way we choose to overcome them that makes us different from each other. Although sometimes the difficult event is too devastating or too powerful to overcome, one must try other means of dealing with it throughout one's life. It is this attitude that takes a toll on someone's mental and emotional attributes long after the event has occurred. These strains can include things like depression, which is usually caused by traumatic events involving the death of loved ones. For Holden this event could be connected to his childhood, when Holden and his family had to suffer all the time when Allie, his younger brother, was bat... middle of paper... partner, James Castle, busy suicide while wearing Holden's sweater. Both drastically affected Holden's life because he saw the world lose what it considered perfection when Allie died of leukemia, and also when Holden saw his former classmate die he was wearing Holden's sweater; so it was almost as if Holden witnessed his own death. This is how he speaks for much of the novel; more specifically about how everyone is fake and he can't really stand anyone and how he never wants to be part of the adult world. So to solve all these problems, Holden could die young and never have to worry about anything again. Holden is a boy with good intentions in mind, but due to the multiple traumatic events he has faced he is unable to act on these intentions and dreams, making him a hero in his dreams but an antihero in the reality of Catcher in the Rye..