Holden Caulfield In The Catcher In The Rye

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Holden Caulfield is a typical depressive teenager that exhibits negative views about growing up. Depression is made up of many categories of symptoms, such as emotional, physical, behavioral, and how one perceives life. These symptoms, take over Holden, due to his lack of knowledge on how to control his feelings. Emotional symptoms can be harder to detect sometimes, especially ones like hopelessness, and sadness. He indicates sadness by saying, “Then I went over and laid down on Ely's bed. Boy, did I feel rotten. I felt so damn lonesome” (48). Holden, even though he says he does not need anybody, he really wants and needs that social interaction, with people like Ackley. He views phony people and social outcasts to have no life, when in reality, …show more content…

Throughout the book, he experiences many random crying spells. “I was sort of crying. I don’t know why” (59). He in this instance, is crying because he is overwhelmed and wants everything in his life to stop changing. He is a teenager, who takes his emotions to the next level, and overreacts over things he cannot control. Worrying is one Holden’s pure talents, because he does it almost all the time even about things that does not apply to him. “I don’t want to interrupt my worrying to go” (40). He worries so much that it prevents him from going out and doing something worthwhile in his life. His teenage sense of overdramatics kicks in, to the point he cannot stop his negative dwellings to even move. This dwelling on the negative, tends to get him in rough situations all due to his constant …show more content…

His thoughts and perceptions convery senses of pessimism and thoughts of death or suicide. His extreme pessimism is explained to him by Phoebe, “You don’t like anything that’s happening” (169). He never is satisfied by anything because he never gives things a chance. Of course when she says this to Holden, he disagrees and says there is nothing to like. Which, backs up her statement of how negative he is towards everything. When things do not go his way, he begins thinking about death and even suicide. “I felt so lonesome all of a sudden, I almost wished I were dead” (48). This indicates that his life is not going the way he wants it, and now is lonely due to his past actions. His reactions and thoughts will only continue to get worse due to his negative view on handling problems. He should treat them maturely, but cannot. Holden Caulfield is a typical teenager, with normal depression caused by overdramatics and worrying. His depression to me is solely based on his huge obsession of worrying, which is a behavioral symptom. While the other symptoms do affect him greatly, his constant fear of being alone, growing up, and fitting in causes his depression to grow. Even though he has such a negative view on life, it can be changed by a change in heart and

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