Examples Of Depression In Catcher In The Rye

Taylor Freeman

Period 6

“ Depression is living in a body that fights to survive with a mind that tries to die”. In the Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield expresses how he gets depressed and is disgusted by the phonies that surround him. Holden feels as if his life is full of disappointment and it doesn’t help to have a brother that used to be a prostitute, one that passed away, and a sister who he thinks so highly but lives so far away. After getting kicked out of Pencey for failing most of his classes, Holden travels to New York to get away from his problems but seems to feel more depressed. When finishing the book came to realize that Holden Caulfield suffers from depression.

One sign of depression is feeling sadness, emptiness, and loneliness (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/ ). In the book Holden says “I was crying and all. I don’t know why, but I was. I guess it was because I was feeling so damn depressed and lonesome” (Chapter 20). Also, Holden is kind of lonely considering he only has only a few people in his address book and Phoebe is the only one he really likes in his family. Holden also feels overwhelmingly sad. He expresses, “Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it lends up making me sad” (Chapter 7). This

shows that Holden feels kind of guilty when someone gives him a gift.
Another symptom is thoughts of death or suicide and loss of interest in activities or hobbies ( http://www.nimh.nih.gov/ ).

In the first chapter Holden explains how Holden went to many schools and flunked out of Pencey Prep. I believed that this is because he lacked interest in his school or he had no motivation. In the book, he states “What I really felt like though, was committing suicide I felt like jumping out the window” (Chapter 14). Instead of facing his problems head on, he finds an alternative which is death. Not only does he feel this way in the middle of the book, but he talks about the thought of death. On page 48 he says, “I got up and went over and looked out the window. I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was

dead.
Another sign of depression that Holden exhibits that affect him physically are changes in his eating habits and sleeping patterns ( http://www.mayoclinic.org/). In the book, Holden’s sleep patterns are off because he has sleep deprivation which mean he lacks sleep. He states “It took me quite a while to get to sleep, I wasn’t tired but I finally did it” (Page 104). He also says, “I wasn’t sleepy or anything, but I was feeling sort of lousy”(Page 90). I noticed that Holden rarely mentions a time when he eats so he might not be eating enough.
Holden rarely mentions being happy, except when his brother Allie was alive. When traveling New York, Holden is always saying how the things he notice make him depressed. Also, in the last few chapters he says that only one thing makes him happy. After evaluating Holden it is clear that he suffers from depression.