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How does salinger characterize holden caulfield in chapter 1 of the catcher in the rye
How does salinger characterize holden caulfield in chapter 1 of the catcher in the rye
Character analysis of Holden of the catcher in the rye
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Holden Caulfield Starting at Pencey Prep in “Catcher In The Rye” you go along with the coming of age story and travel through New York and through a brave teenagers troubles. Holden is a seventeen year old teenager who lost his way after the lost of his younger brother, Allie, from leukemia. Psychological concepts are expressed throughout Holden’s memories as well as his tragedies and helps you understand what it would be like if you were in a situation like his. Holden has been to four boarding schools. He failed three and quit one. At Pencey Prep, his last school, Holden had failed four out of five of his subjects (Salinger 6). Holden passed his English class, because he found his old English teacher inspiring. He had kept that feeling with him throughout other all of his English classes, no matter the teacher. Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) is when someone is so against doing something that they get get angry, start arguing, show defiance, and start being irritable. It can also be explained as a hostile and defiant behavior. ODD is when you show these symptoms in …show more content…
Holden may have some or all of these disorders. His trigger was his brother passing away. Psychological concepts are expressed throughout Holden’s memories and helps people who learn about him understand what it would be like if you were in his situation. I think that Holden was never a bad kid. He might not have been able to handle bumps in the road in the way he probably should have, but maybe part of his problem was just his loneliness being away from his family after his brother’s death. After the book, I would suggest that Holden should go to therapy to learn about other ways to cope and understand what has happened. In therapy, they recommend that you keep a journal to express your emotions that you may feel like you can’t any other time. Maybe this book is Holden’s ‘journal’, because this is where we learn his real thoughts and
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.
Holden experiences agitation and irritability towards dealing with people he perceives at phonies. HIs agitation comes with the experiences he has had with people such as Ackley, Stradlater, his parents, and others he can interpret as fake or that have done things in the past to irritate him. His irritation among people is very common and repetitive throughout the book where it could be identified as a symptom of PTSD. For example, a scene Holden demonstrates agitation is when he talks to Phoebe about what his parents might do to him since he had gotten kicked out of yet another school; Pencey. “No, he won’t. The worst he’ll do, he’ll give me hell again, and then he’ll send me to military school.” (Salinger 166). Holden’s agitation comes from
Holden's idealism is first brought forth when he describes his life at Pency Prep. It is full of phonies, morons and bastards. His roommate, Stradlater, " was at least a pretty friendly guy, It was partly a phony kind of friendly..." (26) and his other roommate, Ackley is "a very nosy bastard" (33). Holden can't stand to be around either one of them for a very long time. Later, he gets into a fight with Stradlater over his date with Jane. Holden is upset because he thinks that Stradlater "gave her the time" and that he doesn't care about her; 'the reason he didn't care was because he was a goddam stupid moron. All morons hate it when you call them a moron' (44). Holden not only sees his roommates as phonies and bastards, but he also sees his headmaster at Pency Prep as a "phony slob" (3). This type of person is exactly what Holden doesn't want to be. He strives to be a mature adult; caring, compassionate, and sensitive.
Holden has continually displayed evidence of a bipolar issue and multiple personality symptoms. For starters, one minute Holden is discussing how much he is revolted by the movies in every way, but the next is attending a premiere with Sally Hayes. “If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies. Don't even mention them to me...but the worst part was that you could tell they all wanted to go to the movies. I couldn't stand looking at them. I can understand somebody going to the movies because there's nothing else to do, but when somebody really wants to go, and even walks fast so as to get there quicker, then it depresses the hell out of me.” (Salinger 2 & 116). Holden is incapable of making up his mind and hypocr...
Holden Caulfield, portrayed in the J.D. Salinger novel Catcher in the Rye as an adolescent struggling to find his own identity, possesses many characteristics that easily link him to the typical teenager living today. The fact that the book was written many years ago clearly exemplifies the timeless nature of this work. Holden's actions are those that any teenager can clearly relate with. The desire for independence, the sexually related encounters, and the questioning of ones religion are issues that almost all teens have had or will have to deal with in their adolescent years. The novel and its main character's experiences can easily be related to and will forever link Holden with every member of society, because everyone in the world was or will be a teen sometime in their life.
In the book, “The Catcher in The Rye” by J.D. Salinger, the main character is very strange in numerous ways. His name is Holden Caulfield and boy has he got something wrong with him. He rambles on and on about nonsense for the first 20-something chapters of the book. He only likes 3-4 people in the book. He smokes and drinks heavily at the ripe age of seventeen. He has been expelled out of numerous prep schools, and feels abandoned and not wanted. He has some sort of mental illness and I think I know what it is. I believe that Holden Caulfield has a mental illness known as Borderline Personality Disorder, also known as BPD. The reasoning for my thinking is that Holden’s actions match up with the symptoms of this illness and the isolation he
more mature for his age then he should have been. This is the basis of
Everyone has their own perception on what defines a hero; some may argue that they exhibit characteristics such as honesty or courage, while others may think that heroes have special power. Our society may have changed the values in which we associate heroes with, but one thing seems to have never changed: the main character of the book turns out as the hero. In my analyst, Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye, is put on trial as we see through our own eyes how Caulfield can not be considered a hero in modern society.
In the novel The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger,Holden the main character tries to take on adult and mature situations but finds himself in reality not getting very far. Holden Caulfield who goes to Pencey has failed four out of five classes and gets the notice that he is being expelled from the school. He leaves the school and goes out and tries to adventure into the real world. Holden takes on many challenges and obstacles throughout the book . Although Holden wants to be independent many people perceive Holden in numerous different ways to his actions and feelings. Faith and Stradlater both perceive Holden as irritating, when in reality he tries to distract himself from being depressed. For example when Holden was in the phone
As Holden Caulfield interacts with others and meets new challenges, he reveals his innermost feelings throughout The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. Some may interpret his behaviors as teenage angst, but others find that Holden reveals traits of a mental disorder. Specifically, Holden suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder. Borderline Personality Disorder “is a serious mental illness marked by unstable moods, behavior, and relationships” (NIMH). He often experiences uncontrollable rage that results in altercations and behaves on impulse when handling money. He also shows signs of addiction when consuming alcohol. Additionally, Holden has trouble maintaining positive relationships with
This in the story is ironic, Holden states, “’That sonuvabitch Hartzell thinks you’re a hot-shot in English, and he knows you’re my roommate” (Salinger 28). Teacher’s think that Holden is good in school, but his mental issues affect him academically and in addition to his inability to deal with life. Salinger begins his novel with Holden explicitly stating, “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like.” (Salinger 1). Seeing Holden through a psychoanalytical point, we can assume that his lousy childhood can be the cause of his feelings of being lost, repression, and his unstable emotions of depression and isolation.
I wasn’t supposed to come back after Christmas vacation … I was flunking four subjects and not applying myself and all” (Salinger 4). Holden does not yet realize the severity of his actions. He does not comprehend that when he does not apply himself, he does not do well. This could partly be due to the fact that when he gets kicked out of one school, he knows that his family will just pay for him to be allowed into another boarding school.
...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.
Holden had a tough time fitting in at his schools because he thought of almost everyone as phonies. "`It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques' (pg. 131)." He seems to have a history of expulsion and failure at various schools because of his lack of ability to cope with others. Ordinary problems of his had turned into major conflicts with other students. "I hate fist fights. I don't mind getting hit so much - although I'm not crazy about it, naturally - but what scares me most in a fist fight is the guy's face. I can't stand looking at the other guy's face, is my trouble. It wouldn't be so bad if you could both be blindfolded or something. 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. (pg. 90)" Holden got into a fight with his roommate at school because he was going out with his ex-girlfriend. He's afraid that the guy is taking her from him, even though he's not with her anymore. These are problems that are normal, but Holden has trouble dealing with them.
In the article “The Adolescent Brain” by Harvard Mental Health Letter, it states that teens “need to assert their independence and explore their limits, by taking risks . . . and rebelling against parents”. One can say that Holden participates by going against he’s parents frequently and asserts his independence. For example when Holden leaves Pencey early to take time off for himself, “When I was all set to go . . . I yelled at the top of my goddam voice, ‘Sleep tight, ya morons!’ . . . Then I got the hell out.” (Salinger 52). Showing that Holden felt no guilt for leaving and becoming independent from his boarding school, where as a younger child might feel afraid to go out on their own and see the world alone like that. Furthermore, Holden also shows that he is excited to leave he’s normal environment and go test out the world around him by not showing any regret in his decision to leave.Some might say that Holden leaving campus early is a symptom of depression or some other form of mental disorder, as stated in “Bipolar Disorder” by Ann Marie T. Sullivan that behavioral changes occur with symptoms of “Increasing goal-directed activities, such as taking on new projects”. However Holden doesn’t view he’s leaving as taking on a new project, he views it as taking a break from the situation that he is in currently and then back to what he had previously started,