I think Holden Caulfield’s difficulties started when his brother died from
leukaemia because on the night of his brother’s death he smashed every window
in the garage with his bare fist and said that he didn’t really know what he
was doing. From what I have read in the book so far this doesn’t appear to
have affected him in what he does. He is very quick to judge people and seems to
hate nearly everyone he encounters but I don’t think that this is related to
the death of his little brother. One of his problems which I think may be
related to the death of his little brother is that he is continuously getting
expelled from schools which is how the book starts with him getting expelled
from Pencey Prep. When he is leaving the school he yells out “So long, ya
morons!” which I think is a dumb thing to say because someone may have been
woken up by this and gone out to get him. Another thing, which I believe should
be counted as a problem, is that he wrote a little message at the bottom of his
exam to the teacher saying that he found his lectures interesting but didn’t
take much of it in. Something else that Holden did a lot of was lying which I
believe is a problem. He lied to another student’s Mum on a train about many
things including what her son was like, why he was on the train and even his
name. In another part of the book he lied about his age to a prostitute. He also
lied about a few other things in the book.