In Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s dealing with death enables him to chose to live. 

 II) Existential Questioning 

 a) What after death? 

 Throughout the whole book, the question of what happens after we die is a leit motive. Salinger uses the metaphor of Central Park’s ducks when the lake is frozen. Holden keeps wondering where those ducks go, if they’re transported to another place by some zoo working guy or if they just disappear, which makes a parallel with his brother’s tragic death still haunting our protagonist. Holden might even dread his own death through this questioning. 

 b) From pessimism to optimism 

 At a point, Holden finds shelter at Mr. Antolini’s house, who is his former teacher and one of the only adults he still trusts. Though, Holden feels the need to get out of the house as Mr. Antolini acts inappropriately during the night. Thus, Holden ends up alone with his dark thoughts in New York’s streets in the late night, no longer trusting any grown-ups.. Indubitably shaken, he imagines his death at each end of block. But instead of comforting him in his will of joining his dead brother Allie and thus find the solution of his problems, disappearing extremely frightens him. He realizes at that point that he doesn’t want to die. Then, Holden changes behaviour, and starts seeing the brighter side. As the matter of fact, he even talks to his deceased brother Allie and thanks him for not letting him disappear as he gets to the other side of the street. We notice now that instead of thinking of his brother as an appeal to death, Holden now uses this figure as a support in life. This plot twist marks Holden’s ending pessimism leading to optimism. 

 c) A reason to live 

 Though his attachment to Allie usually makes Holden want to join him in death, he also turns to his little sister Phoebe, who symbolizes life. Being a child, she represents happiness and joy of living. To Holden, she is “the smartest kid...” and he spends with her the rare happy moments of the book. (lexical field) He really enjoys being around her and even envies her innocence and wants to protect her from the surrounding phony world. This idea of protecting children’s innocence is also ubiquitous throughout the book, as Holden aspires to become the Catcher in the Rye. 

The carrousel could itself be separated in two worlds: the kids are on the horses, spinning; the adults/parents are watching the kids from benches. Holden is on a bench, watching Phoebe on the carrousel: "I went over and sat down on this bench, and she went and got on the carrousel" (Chap. 25) . This is a proof of Holden's evolution throughout the book: he is now an adult. He acknowledges that growing up is necessary, and a part of it is failure: "The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them." (Chap. 25).


3/. The end

At the end of the twenty-fifth chapter, Holden recovers the role of the catcher in the rye as Phoebe gives back his red hunting hat, the symbol of the catcher in the rye: "Then what she did - it damn near killed me - she reached in my coat pocket and took out my red hunting hat and put it on my head.".
Then, Holden says : "I felt so damn happy all of sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around." (Chap. 25), which is a big contradiction with the whole novel, where the protagonist was mostly depressed "I was more depressed than I ever was in my whole life" (Chap. 25). We can say that it is a happy ending.
Altought, the biggest evidence of Holden's will to live is the fact that while telling his story, he is in a mental health facility, trying to heal.