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The catcher in the rye holden mental analysis
The catcher in the rye summary essay
The catcher in the rye holden mental analysis
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One of the best known novels in English-speaking countries, J.D Salinger’s Catcher In The Rye deals with Holden Caulfield’s past trauma which is the triggering factor in his depression, anxiety and alienation. Holden tells an unnamed person what has happened in the three days prior to his mental breakdown. Through Holden’s relatable characteristics and Salinger’s narrative treatment, the book continues to engage audiences across generations. The way that Salinger writes gives the audience a very personal and insightful look into what Holden is feeling. It’s told in the first person, in a confessional style, and utilises digression. This creates a sense of closeness with the protagonist. It’s like Holden is talking directly to the reader. …show more content…
He disregards most people because he thinks they are ‘phonies’ - materialistic, shallow and insincere people. To Holden, almost anyone who falls under that category is a phony and isn’t someone he wants to spend time with. However, because of Holden’s trauma, the reader can’t quite trust him. He sees the world through so many layers of protection, he is an unreliable narrator. Holden experiences both alienation and disillusionment when meeting with people like Sally Hayes, Sunny and Ackley. Holden is so desperate to have human connection yet, when he starts to talk to them, he experiences them as ‘phonies’. This makes him more depressed, continuing his downward spiral. Holden is caught in a trap of his own making.
Holden’s childhood was far from ideal, with Allie dying, his dysfunctional parents and the revelation that he had some “perverty” stuff happen to him when he was a kid. Due to this, he isn't ready to step into adulthood and leave his childhood behind. This is why Holden is mostly alienated from adults and connects more to the innocence of children like the girl at the park and his sister, Phoebe. However, Holden is disillusioned with both adulthood and childhood. He already knows how it feels to be an adult; drinking alcohol, being independent, living by himself and caring for Phoebe, but isn’t ready to immerse himself in it.
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His sense of impending doom is another symptom of his PTSD. “So I started getting worried about my hormones. Then I read this other article about how you can tell if you have cancer or not. It said if you had any sores in your mouth that didn't heal pretty quickly, it was a sign that you probably had cancer. I'd had this sore on the inside of my lip for about two weeks. So figured I was getting cancer.”
I think that his trauma was ultimately the cause of Holden’s emotional breakdown, along with his evident depression. Due to J.D Salinger’s personal and relatable narrative treatment, Catcher in the Rye continues to engage audiences, even 64 years after it was first published. The way the book deals with alienation and disillusionment in regards to Holden’s past trauma - through the closeness of first person narration and conversational writing among other techniques - creates a personal connection to Holden’s character and helps adolescents relate his troubles to their own.
Author Unknown,. 'The Catcher In The Rye Sexuality And Sexual Identity Quotes,’ 2015, Quote #2, 5 June
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger is a popular novel that was originally published in the 1950’s. In the book, Salinger explores various themes through the main character Holden and his interactions with others. Some of these themes include, alienation, loss and betrayal. Holden constantly feels betrayed throughout the novel by several people, including his roommate, teacher, and sister.
He comes to some realizations, but nothing that makes him less pessimistic, making him a shining example of how being immoderately idealistic can disrupt your expectations for the world. It is glaringly clear that Salinger purposely portrayed Holden as a mess in order to show off the flaws of setting expectations above the healthy dose. If you only accept people without flaws and never leave room for air, you will always be
Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye on the surface is a story of an ill-behaved boy wandering the streets of New York getting into all sorts of mischief. Though, when looked at past the surface, we see a story of a troubled young man that is yearning for attention, acceptance, and love. Many theories have transpired about Holden Caulfield and his problems. Among them are Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and that he is just traveling through the five stages of grief.
Holden’s apparent desire to be separated from the majority of his family and friends appears to have been triggered by the death of his younger brother Allie. From Allie’s there has been a downward spiral in Holden’s relationships, as he begins to avoid contact with others and isolate himself more. The reason I believe this is because we can see how immense his anger is after Allie’s death, ‘I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist’. The death of Allie has become like an awakening to Holden, and has alerted him how precious childhood innocence is, when Holden comes to this realisation he convinces himself to do everything within his power to protect the innocence of himself and those around him, to protect them from what he sees as a false adult world. Although Holden clearly fails to protect himself, as he falls into all sorts of situations which hardly boasts of innocence and virt... ...
Holden alienates himself by believing he is better than everybody else. Every time Holden meets or talks about someone he is judgemental. Even when he is talking about someone he spends time with, he cannot help but ridicule them, “I never even once saw him [Ackley] brush his teeth....he had a lot of pimples. Not just on his forehead or his chin, like most guys, but all over his whole face. And not only that, he had a terrible personality. He was also sort of a nasty guy. I wasn't too crazy about him, to tell you the truth.”(Salinger,14 ). Ackley is probably the closest thing to a friend Holden has. Yet he criticizes him is a very nitpicky way, convincing himself he does not like
Catcher in the Rye is one of the most famous books in American literature. Written by J. D. Salinger, it captures the epitome of adolescence through Salinger’s infamous anti-hero, Holden Caulfield. Holden Caulfield learns about himself and his negative tendencies, and realizes that if he does not do something to change his perspective, he may end up like his acquaintance James Castle whom he met at Elkton Hills. Holden tries to find help to mend his outlook on life through Mr. Antolini so he does not end up like James, who did not want to face the problems he created for himself. This is proven by the similarities between James Castle and Holden, Mr. Antolini’s willingness to try and help Holden, and Holden’s future being forecasted by James.
Salinger continues his use of installing reality in fiction by Holden’s hospitalization. The reader finds out within the first chapter that Holden is being hospitalized due to a recent mental breakdown (Salinger). Interestingly enough, Salinger was also hospitalized shortly after his combat in WWII for his mental breakdown (Biography). Clearly, Salinger was making a major connection to himself through Holden by giving his character his
The Catcher in the Rye has been described, analyzed, rebuffed, and critiqued over the years. Each writer expresses a different point of view: It is a story reflecting teen-ager's talk--thoughts-emotions--actions; or angst. I believe it is an adult's reflection of his own unresolved grief and bereavements. That adult is the author, J.D. Salinger. He uses his main character, Holden, as the voice to vent the psychological misery he will not expose -or admit to.
Holden often resides within his own ideologies which often conflict with that of the society’s. This is prevalent within Holden’s viewpoint as many of the adults being “phonies” and is not far from the truth. Most of the characters seemingly lack depth and are consumed within their own shallowness. Sally is the epitome of society’s shallow nature by outwardly expressing her needs. “‘Look. I have to know. Are you or aren’t you coming over to help me trim the tree Christmas Eve? I have to know’” (Salinger 130). She is too busy worried about her own affairs that Holden’s deteriorating state simply is not even recognizable in her eyes. Her focus is on what he can do for her rather than sympathizing with his issues. People are often this way where they ignore problems that om their solution., Salinger’s viewpoint is a bit cynical towards this as most of the adults have this traits perhaps portraying the loss of empathy from childhood to adulthood. Another overall theme regarding society is the advocation of honesty morally but avoiding uncomfortable situations with lies in practice. Holden often regards this type of behavior has “phony” but regardless finds himself following along as well. “I’m always saying ‘Glad to’ve met you’ to somebody I’m not at all glad I met” (Salinger 87). Small talk,
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger is a coming-of-age novel set in New York during the 1940’s. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the story, is a detached seventeen-year old boy harboring feelings of isolation and disillusionment. He emphasizes a general dislike for society, referring to people as “phonies.” His lack of will to socialize prompts him to find nearly everything depressing. He’s alone most of the time and it’s apparent that he is very reclusive. This often leads him to pondering about his own death and other personal issues that plague him without immediate resolution. Holden possesses a strong deficit of affection – platonic and sexual – that hinders and cripples his views toward people, his attitude, and his ability to progressively solve his problems without inflicting pain on himself. The absence of significant figures in his life revert him to a childlike dependency and initiate his morbid fascination with sexuality. In this novel, Salinger uses Sunny, Sally Hayes, and Carl Luce to incorporate the hardships of discovering sexual identity and how these events affect adolescents as they try to understand their own sexuality.
The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D.Salinger, is a novel written to convey the emotions of transitioning from a child to an adult. The story takes place primarily in New York City, New York, following teenage boy Holden Caulfield during a short snippet of his life. The reader travels through this time as Caulfield is kicked out of secondary school and journeys to New York shortly after. The novel’s purpose is to detail the painful experience of being a teenager through the eyes of a boy who does not understand adults and experiences withdrawal from society due to his discontent with it. This experience relates to many which is why the book is still to this day so popular and why it is a valuable piece of literature.
Holden is a pessimistic, remote, and miserable character and he expresses this attitude through dialogue, tone, and diction. Throughout the book he has remained to be a liar, a failure, a loner, and lastly, a suicidal guy who feels like he has no purpose in life. Perhaps Salinger expressed his perceptions and emotions of his teen years in this book and it was a form of conveying his deep inner feelings of his childhood. Readers can see this clearly shown in The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger.
Superficially the story of a young man getting expelled from another school, the Catcher in the Rye is, in fact, a perceptive study of one individual’s understanding of his human condition. Holden Caulfield, a teenager growing up in 1950’s, New York, has been expelled from school for poor achievement once again. In an attempt to deal with this he leaves school a few days prior to the end of term, and goes to New York to take a vacation before returning to his parents’ inevitable irritation. Told as a monologue, the book describe Holden’s thoughts and activities over these few days, during which he describes a developing nervous breakdown. This was evident by his bouts of unexplained depression, impetuous spending and generally odd, erratic behavior, prior to his eventual nervous collapse.
The Catcher in the Rye revolves around Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the novel, and his disillusionment. Holden’s disillusionment illustrates that he has a problem accepting such. Aforesaid is based upon multiple factors, most which have brought Holden lasting traumas. A remedy is required for Holden to accept his disillusionment and enable an improvement of his situation. For Holden’s remedy, the consultation of psychologists, and additional specialized health professionals would be the core of an apt remedy for Holden’s psychological and physiological state based upon the numerous causes of such and the everlasting trauma of some of the determinants of aforesaid situation. The origins of Holden’s disillusionment revolved mainly around the death of his younger brother Allie three years ago, of which he still experiences the trauma to this day. His disillusionment is caused by both
Some people feel all alone in this world, with no direction to follow but their empty loneliness. The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D Salinger, follows a sixteen-year-old boy, Holden Caulfield, who despises society and calls everyone a “phony.” Holden can be seen as a delinquent who smokes tobacco, drinks alcohol, and gets expelled from a prestigious boarding school. This coming-of-age book follows the themes of isolation, innocence, and corrupted maturity which is influenced from the author's life and modernism, and is shown through the setting, symbolism, and diction.