Catcher In The Rye Coping Analysis

Every person has their own unique way of coping with situations in their life. The goal of coping is,“to deal effectively with something difficult” (OED). While there are many effective ways of coping there are also many ineffective ways to cope. Holden Caulfield , the protagonist The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger, is a character who addresses stressful moments in his life with unhealthy coping methods. According to Sigmund Freud,a doctor who studied the human mind, Holden’s “ID” and “Super-Ego”, or his unconscious mind, was at conflict and the coping strategies that presented themselves through his actions, thoughts, and words were to deal with this internal conflict. An unhealthy coping strategy that Holden uses often is fantasy.

Fantasy is facility or activity of imaging things that are impossible or improbable. In the past, when my grandpa died, I was in a similar situation with the situation Holden was in. Because of my personal experience with a love one’s death, I feel empathy and pity for Holden’s inability to cope affectively with his lose.
Holden deals with Allies death through fantasizing about him before his death. In the novel holden describes sexual encounters that he was not able to go through with and made up excuses to get out of. This happens again when Sunny, a minor character in the novel, is in a hotel room with Holden attempting to seduce him, although Holden spits out a lie to get her to stop seducing him. Once Sunny leaves Holden begins to fantasize about Allie before his death and he remembers a situation where he didn’t allow Allie to join his friend and himself on a bike ride. Holden sat in his hotel room thinking, “Boy, I felt miserable. I felt so depressed, you can’t imagine. What I did. I started talking, sort of out loud, to Allie. I do that sometimes when I get very depressed. I keep telling him to go home and get his bike and meet me in front of Bobby Fallon’s house” (Salinger 98). Holden is very self-conscious about being a virgin, so another sexual encounter like the one with Sunny where he holds back from doing anything triggers a conflict in his unconscious mind. His ID, which controls his impulsive behavior, wants to have sex with Sunny. Although his Super-Ego, which controls his ethical behavior, holds him back from it. Every time he wishes he would have had sex yet every time he doesn’t even when he has the opportunity. The reader can tell he wishes he would have had sex by describing the feeling after not having sex as “miserable” and “very depressing” (Salinger 98).He copes with this conflict by fantasizing about Allie and not letting him come on his adventure. This specific event came to Holden’s mind because just like he wishes he would have had sex, he also wishes he would have let him come on the bike ride and spent more time with Allie before he died. When my grandpa died I felt very much like Holden did after Allie died, therefore I feel empathy for Holden’s inability to cope. Although I was relatively young when my grandpa died and my grandpa and I were never very close, unlike Holden and Allie, I still wish I would have spent more time with him. I began to fantasize what we could have done together based on what my friend told me they did with their grandpa’s. And in my ways I felt guilty, much like Holden did because I never went out of my way to spend more time with him.

Another instance in the book when Holden uses fantasy to come is when he is to nervous to walk to the other side of the street.

Holden was walking in Fifth Avenue and overtime he came to the end of the block he began to feel extremely nervous. He sad he felt as if he was going to “disappear”(Salinger 198). Holden says, “Boy did it scare me… Every time I’d get to the end of the block I’d make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I’d say to him ‘Allie, don’t let me disappear. Allie don’t let me disappear… Please, Allie,’ ” (Salinger 198). When Holden is nervous he is nervous because he doesn’t want to “disappear” (Salinger 198). Holden is nervous because he doesn’t want to “disappear” at “the end of the block ” (Salinger 198). By this he really means he does’t want to die at the end of his life, like Allie died at the end of his life. He steers clear from using the words die and at the end of life, because he is in denial that Allies life is over and that he is dead. Although his conscious mind logically knows that Allie is not alive anymore, subconsciously his mind refuses to accept that, and this is where there is conflict. To cope with that conflict he begins to fantasize that Allie is with him giving him advice and watching over him. To Holden Allie is like a child's imaginary friend, when he doesn’t need Allie it is not like Allie doesn’t exist in his subconscious mind, his conscious mind simply takes over. Although when he is scared, or something is triggered to cope he begins to fantasize Allie and take comfort in Allie even though consciously he knows it is impossible for him to be talking to Allie. I relate to Allie in the manner that I went through a denial phase why coping with my grandfathers loss, also denial was not nearly as sever as Allie’s. When my grandpa first died it was hard to truly accept that he wasn’t with us any more. Again, I was little when he died so I kept trying to convince that he wasn’t dead, although eventually I really

accepted that he was dead and it made the enter coping process easier. I truly feel pity for Holden because he is stuck in the denial phase of coping, which is extremely painful because consciously he knows Allie is still not alive but subconsciously he can’t accept that he is dead.