Holden Caulfield Trauma

During the age of the primitive man, the single fight-or-flight mechanism of stress was responsible for the survival of our distant ancestors when in the face of intimidating predators. Passed on through human descent with modification, stress, in a modern context, now - ironically - does more harm than good. In his novel The Catcher in the Rye, author J. D. Salinger accurately portrays a young, rebellious specimen of adolescence named Holden Caulfield, who narrates his struggles through trauma, depression, and other forms of mental stress throughout his formative years in a relatively modern America. While Salinger crafts Holden into an unreliable narrator, who decides to deal with his stress by “acting cool”, he also establishes early on

Although Holden makes excuses to sound neutral about his mental wellbeing, his worsening physical state, isolation from others, and glorification of death opposingly show the deep, lasting effects of trauma and a progressively fracturing teenage mind in the absence of help.

Even though Holden acts like everything is alright, his worsening physical symptoms show that he is actually depressed from trauma. At the start of the novel, Holden describes himself, “The one side of my head -the right side- is full of millions of gray hairs. I’ve had them ever since I was a kid” (12). As Holden is young, his grey hairs are most likely due to stress - as opposed to aging. Moreover, already, it is clear that his mind has been subjected to a great deal of stress ever since he was young, yet as his family seems to be financially secure and early grade school is generally not demanding, the only troubling moment from Holden’s youth that the reader learns of directly is Allie’s death (43). This suggests that

After his death, Allie becomes the golden standard to which everyone else is compared to by Holden. In recounting his impression of Allie before his death, Holden argues, “But it wasn’t just that he was the most intelligent member in the family. He was also the nicest, in lots of ways. He never got mad at anybody” (43). As the post-Allie Holden rarely compliments people, it is clear that Holden thinks of Allie very highly. It is primarily due to this high standard of “innocence” from Allie that Holden becomes obsessed with “phoniness”; after his death, Holden cannot help but compare others to his late brother. When remembering his experience at Elkton Hills, he notes, “They had this headmaster, Mr. Haas, that was the phoniest bastard I ever met in my life” (17). This theme of “phoniness” is rife and recurrent throughout Holden’s narration and generally pertains to people the same age as him or older. Holden rejects almost everyone he meets by calling them “phonies” and thereby causing him to behave in a manner that isolates him. When on his date with Sally, he repeatedly calls her actions “phony” (138-148). Thus, unable to control his distaste for her phoniness, eventually, he calls her “a royal pain in the ass” (148) and essentially terminates any hopes of them having a relationship. Furthermore, when Phoebe later asks Holden for one thing that he likes (187), he struggles to find an answer until he