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Character analysis of Holden Caulfield
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A Failed Defence Against Society Someone having to watch his or her back at all times would be living on the edge. He or she do not get much rest. Holden Caulfield is constantly on the lookout in The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, and the effects of this action can obviously be seen by the end of the novel. Holden attempts to protect himself and to escape from society, but ultimately fails and becomes vulnerable to the predators of society. Holden protects himself by fighting against his enemies vocally because he is unable to do so physically. One way in which Holden uses language to fight is when he continues to call Stradlater, his roommate at Pencey, a moron while Holden is getting beaten up. Stradlater just gets off Holden when Holden …show more content…
fights back using his words. “My chest hurt like hell from his dirty knees. ‘You’re a dirty stupid sonuvabitch of a moron,’ I told him” (Salinger 58). Holden attacks Stradlater where he can inflict the most damage. He knows that he can never beat Stradlater in a physical fight so instead he fights using his words. Another example of Holden defending himself with words is when he gets in a fight with a pimp, Maurice. Holden calls him a dirty moron then says the pimp will be a beggar on the street in two years. Much like Stradlater Holden can not fight Maurice physically so he starts making fun of him. He attacks Maurice where he can not protect himself. Holden simply takes the punches and slaps while constantly making fun of Maurice. Making fun of people is Holden’s way of fighting. Much like people trading punches, he trades a punch for a degrading comment. Not only does he fight using words he also lies in order to help himself. Holden tries to escape society by lying to hide who he really is. For one thing, Holden often uses an alter ego, Jim Steele, changing his age and multiple other characteristics in the process. He uses his alter ego many times throughout the novel and almost exclusively introduces himself to strangers as Jim. To hide his true self, he completely changes his personality when he becomes Jim Steele. He feels that exposing himself as Holden would open the way up for people to take advantage of him. To show a change when he becomes Jim Steele, he is suave while the regular Holden is definitely not. He also becomes extremely confident and sees girls who are not interested in him as ignorant. Furthermore, Holden lies so much about everything even when it is not necessary. Holden meets a mother of his classmate on the train when leaving Pencey and describes himself as such a bizarre character. “‘It’s me. I have to have this operation… It isn’t very serious. I have this tiny tumor on the brain’” (Salinger 75). Holden did not need to share this information for any reason yet does to further disguise himself. He lies so he can remain unknown. Although Holden lies and fights vocally he fails in shielding himself. Holden is unsuccessful in his attempts to protect himself and escape society as seen through his abnormal behavior.
One example of his abnormal behaviors is that he is constantly depressed. Trowbridge, an intellectual critic, writes about Holden’s depression. “So terrible is Holden’s depression, so complete his sense of alienation from the world of the living, that in his disturbed imagination only the dead, idealized brother can save him from the nothingness, the hellish state of his own nihilism” (Trowbridge 689). Holden has lost the fight against society and starts acting strange. He does not know how to feel anymore. He talks to his dead brother to cheer himself up, and his feelings are just so complicated that he even feels sorry for people who do not deserve his pity one bit. Increasingly, not only is he always depressed, but also he is having a mental breakdown. Holden cries many times almost spontaneously. He prays to his dead brother when he crosses the street believing that his brother will save him. Also one of the few adults that Holden trusts turns out to be a possible pedophile. Almost nothing has gone right for Holden and his life is just a downward spiral that is not getting better. Holden’s depression and mental breakdown prove has lost his fight against
society. Holden struggles in his efforts to shield and to disguise himself from society’s predatory nature but is unsuccessful. Proof of his struggles and failure are his vocal attacks, lies, and strange behavior. Constantly looking over your shoulder would cause most people to degrade at least a bit. Your personality would change and you might end up just like Holden.
Holden struggles with himself mightily and cannot fulfill his responsibilities. One of Holden’s struggles is that he has a bad attitude towards everyone. For example, at the school he goes to, he hates his roommates and his teachers. In addition to not liking anyone, Holden
Holden is an outlier of society, and tries to hide his own weaknesses with his angry thoughts. It is also implied that Holden is enrolled in an institution as he talks about doctor appointments towards the beginning of the book.
Holden also has a negative perspective of life that makes things seem worse than they really are. In addition to Holden’s problems he is unable to accept the death of his brother at a young age. Holden’s immaturity, negative mentality, and inability to face reality hold him back from moving into adulthood. Holden’s immaturity causes him many problems throughout the story. Although he is physically mature, he acts more like a child.
Holden is not just abnormal, he has problems that other teenagers, including the students at Pencey, experience going through adolescence. An example of this is Holden's jealousy towards Stradlater when he finds out he is going on a date with Jane Gallagher, “Boy,was I getting nervous” (42). Every teenager has bouts of jealously especially about the opposite sex, and Holden is no different. Holden's rebellious nature, to an extent, is typical for a teenage boy. His rebellious nature of smoking when it is not allowed, “You weren't allowed to smoke in the dorm...I went right on smoking like a madman.” (41-42). Holden is also anxious about change, which again to an extent is normal, “Do you happen to know where they go, the ducks...”(60), and he has the right to be; change,especially during adolescence, is a terrifying but exciting ride into the unknown, and similar to other adolescents Holden is afraid but intrigued about the unknown.
The 1940's were a time of nationalism. Men had to have an appearance of a tough attitude. They were never allowed to let their real feelings show. One of the major reasons Holden becomes depressed is the death of his brother Allie. He described is brother as being nothing but perfect. He keeps this guilt locked up inside him because he blames his death on himself. A memory that haunts him is when he excluded his brother from a b-b gun game. Another memory that he held on to and was never able to forgive himself for was when Allie asked Holden to go bike riding and he didn't go. Holden did not have a good relationship with his Mother or Father. He needed them the most right after the death of Allie. However, we see Holden crying out help and attention when he threw a baseball through the window and broke it and still nobody talked to him. His older brother went off to Hollywood. The only one he adores is his younger sister Phoebe. He is able to talk to her and he thought she understood him.
There will always be a moment where we all change, but most of us would prefer to hold on to remaining an adolescent. "Catcher in the Rye" written by J.D. Salinger, is a story about a high-school student, Holden, who looks for a reason to change and move on from his depressing page of life. The novel depicts the adventures of Holden as he processes a change. Through Holden's resistance to change, Salinger expresses that people sometimes crave for the past which impacts us negatively, but we would be better off if we learn to move on and find something special.
Holden is driven crazy by phoniness, an idea under which he lumps insincerity, snobbery, injustice, callousness, and a lot more. He is a prodigious worrier, and someone who is moved to pity quite often. Behrman wrote: "Grown men sometimes find the emblazoned obscenities of life too much for them, and leave this world indecorously, so the fact that a 16-year old boy is overwhelmed should not be surprising" (71). Holden is also labeled as curious and compassionate, a true moral idealist whose attitude comes from an intense hatred of hypocrisy. The novel opens in a doctor's office, where Holden is recuperating from physical illness and a mental breakdown.
Symptomatic of those affected by mental illness, Holden lacks the ability to have solid relationships with others. He has attended numerous boarding schools and seldom lives at home. This has created a distant relationship between him and his parents. Holden never explicitly reveals whether or not he wishes to have a closer bond with his parents, but it is implied. He sneaks into his house while on his New York excursion to visit his younger sister Phoebe. As he is about to leave his parents’ house, “all of a sudden, [he starts] to cry. [He] couldn’t help it” (Salinger 179). His abrupt outburst of emotion indicates his need to have his parents’ help. He realizes that when he leaves, it may be his last time in the house, so he is not able to control holding in his emotions any longer. Holden also does not maintain a good relationship with his brother, D.B. He cannot stand that D.B. is “out in Hollywood… being a prostitute” (Salinger 2). Holden refers to him as a prostitute because he believes that D.B. is wasting his creative talents on screenwriting, a field that does not allow one to exercise his or her creativity. This causes the relationship that the two have to be frail. Holden’s relationship with his family is not ideal, and results from his mental
Holden Caulfield can be analyzed through his thoughts, actions and circumstances which surround his everyday life. Holden acts like a careless teenager. Holden has been to several prep-schools, all of which he got kicked out of for failing classes. After being kicked out of the latest, Pency Prep, he went off to New York on his own. Holden seems to have a motivation problem which apparently affects his reasoning. The basis of his reasoning comes from his thoughts. Holden thinks the world is full of a bunch of phonies. All his toughs about people he meets are negative. The only good thoughts he has are about his sister Phoebe and his dead brother Alley. Holden, perhaps, wishes that everyone, including himself, should be like his brother and sister. That is to be intelligent, real and loving. Holden’s problem is with his heart. It was broken when his brother died. Now Holden goes around the world as his fake self, wearing his mask. Holden is looking for love, peace and understanding. He is scared to love because he is afraid he might lose it like he did with his brother. That is the reason for Holden's love of the museum, he feels safe because it never changes it always stays the same. Holden is troubled with the pain of death, it effects every aspect of his life causing him to not care about the future, himself or anyone, except Phoebe and Alley.
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.
The negative light that Holden views the world under is a key contribution to his unhappiness. He is unable to see even a glint of sincerity in people’s actions which allows him to experience feelings of severe despondency and dejection. “People never give your message to anybody,” (pg. 166) shows how Holden no longer feels let down by people but instead expects the worst from them instead. He struggles to find genuinity in people’s actions, and in turn feels “lousy and depressed,” by nearly everything. Holden is constantly seen bringing down the adult world. It is shown he has an inner conflict between his adult and child self, leading him to feeling lost and without a place. He is disgusted by the adult world describing it as a place filled with “phonies” but, views adolescence as a source of happiness. He shows a direct fear of change by stating, “The best thing...was that everything always stayed right where it was.” (pg. 135). As Holden is being pushed out of his childhood and into an area where he feels out of place, it is only inevitable that this would be a source of his depression. Both of these internal conflicts add to Holden Caulfield’s
It is a mental illness that can sometimes occur in teenagers as a response to a sudden traumatic experience or abandonment. Symptoms of depression that directly relate to Holden’s behaviour include: loss of appetite, depressed or irritable mood, failing relations with family and friends, faltering school performance, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness or self-hatred and obsessive fears or worry about death. Holden lost his younger brother Allie to cancer when he was only thirteen years old. An event such as this is can be traumatic to a young person and cause feelings of sadness and/or depression. Thoughts about suicide is another common symptom of depression. Holden expresses thoughts about committing suicide in Chapter 14 after Maurice assaults him: “What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would've done it, too, if I’d been sure somebody’d cover me up as soon as I landed. I didn't want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory” (Salinger,
...ality in the narrative is having to deal with alienation and how he deals with it, with the world. One of his other psychological features is having depression, which elucidate to Sigmund Freud. Holden’s last trait has to do with having immature relationships with women and focuses on both the author and Holden. Holden Caulfield could also be known as a wallflower. He is shy, always excluded to the world, and is always focusing in his own mind, which somewhat makes him have a normal trait. But that doesn’t cover his mental disorders.
Mr. Antolini?s theory as to what is wrong with Holden is right on, it?s just too bad he was unable to get through to Holden. Due to the fact that Holden has already given up on himself and is unwilling to apply the valuable advice he has been given. He has lost the substantial ability to find happiness in life and therefore can?t find the energy to motivate himself in anything he does. It?s a tragedy that someone as bright as Holden Caulfield is unable to find the strength within himself to persevere in a world of insanity.
People’s shortcomings cause them to look at themselves and the environment around them, Holden does this multiple times throughout the book. “It’s a funny kind of yellowness, when you come to think of it, but it’s yellowness, all right. I’m not kidding myself,” (100). Holden doesn’t delude himself into thinking he’s perfect, which will allow him to better understand himself and his needs, but it also causes him some problems, like depression. Depression is said to ail everyone at least once at some point in their lives, Salinger makes it apparent that Holden is suffering it throughout the novel. “What I really felt like doing, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would have done it, too, if I’d been sure somebody’d cover me up as soon as I landed,” (116-117). Depression and suicide are still present in today’s society, and unfortunately a part or many people’s lives, contributing to the American