Holden Caulfield Archetype

Time has had no effect on the stereotypical teenager filled with “teenage angst”. One of the most familiar examples of this would be “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger. Holden exemplifies teenage angst by realizing the wrong in society and looking for a purpose for himself. The archetype is still prevalent 64 years later in literature. These modern characters attempt to find their place in the world, struggle with traumatic past experiences and still find the wrongs in society, just as Holden Caulfield did years ago.

One of the main problems Holden struggles with is being understood, starting with his family. Ever since his brother Allie died, his parents do not give Holden the love and attention he really needs. They obviously still

care about his future and well-being because they keep sending him to different schools after he is removed, but they just do not seem to understand why he acts the way he does in the story.

In today’s literature, there seems to be a common characteristic of parents that do not understand what their child is going through. For example, in all of the Harry Potter series, Harry has to deal with his aunt and uncle causing him much distress. This is due to the fact that Harry’s uncle, Vernon, had a disagreement with Harry’s father. Since Harry looks so much like his father, his uncle takes his hate and anger out on him constantly. This also makes the Dursleys not care for Harry; he does not get the attention he should have as a child and is often misunderstood because of the magic he yields. “… Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as ... as ... abnormal ... and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!” (Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 3). This shows that there is some negative feelings toward Harry and the Dursleys did not want to be the guardians of Harry since the

beginning. One other similarity is that both Harry and Holden are trying to find their purpose. Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, Holden tries on different personas to see what kind of lifestyle he should obtain, which would help him identify his purpose in society. One of the first times he used a persona in the book was after he left Pencey and boarded the bus with Mrs. Morrow. “‘I must tell Ernest we met,’ she said. ‘May I ask your name, dear?’ ‘Rudolph Schmidt,’ I told her. I didn’t feel like giving her my whole life history. Rudolph Schmidt was the name of the janitor of our dorm” (Salinger 71). This could be seen as Holden’s first attempt to start a new life, and “trying on” the new lifestyle he has found. Harry also struggles with the decision of which lifestyle to live; he is torn between Slytherin and Gryffindor. Since he has parseltongue, it would make him leans toward Slytherin since the leader of the house was also parseltongue. This brings up questions as to if there is relation between Salazar Slytherin and Harry. But at the same time, Slytherin has a reputation for evil, and Gryffindor is known as the “good” house. This made Harry make the difficult decision as to what kind of lifestyle should he live based on the house on the house he wanted to live in for his years at Hogwart’s. These two characters both have shared deep character traits and conflicts, even though they are separated by several years. Moving on to the next topic, there will be a realization that the past is still, and always will be, a major detail to a character’s development.
Holden is known to struggle with past and ongoing experiences.

From death to being abandoned, it is hard for him to deal with these events. The one experience it seems like Holden struggles with is his brother, Allie’s, death. “I was only thirteen [when Allie died], and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage” (50). This event shows how much Allie’s death hurt Holden because it took a toll on him mentally and physically. This is similar to the situation in the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. The main character, Charlie, is dealing with the suicide of his friend, Michael. He writes to an imaginary friend in order to get his emotions out about the whole situation. The deaths of Holden and Charlie’s close friends/relatives also connect them by the effect it had on them mentally. These main characters show signs of PTSD, depression, anxiety, etc. because of a significant tragedy in their lives. Eventually, they have to learn to cope with these situations. Holden goes around New York City trying to deal with his depression through meeting up with different associates and taking part in different activities, like the show at Radio City, to help him relieve the pain. Said earlier in the paragraph, Charlie writes to his imaginary friend to relinquish himself of emotional distress. Consequently, Holden and Charlie have faced the harsh truth of reality. This will begin to tie together with the final

paragraph dealing with the wrongs in society.
The final topic is the topic of dealing with and overcoming the flaws of society. No matter what era, society is known to have several flaws. The first deals with the people and how genuine their actions are to certain people. Holden experiences this with his former headmaster at Elkton Hills.
“For instance, they had this headmaster, Mr. Haas, that was the phoniest bastard I ever met in my life…old Haas went around shaking hands with everybody’s parents when they drove up to the school. He’d be charming as hell and all. Except if some boy had little old funny-looking parents” (19).
Mr. Haas’ actions were not truly genuine. He would treat people with higher quality lives with more respect in comparison to people living average lives. An example that is comparable to this is The Hunger Games series. Katniss goes against the Capitol because of the several social injustices it inflicts on Panem. President Snow favors the wealthy, just like Mr. Haas, therefore giving them the favor. These conflicts eventually blend together to form a whole new struggle for Katniss and Holden: economic inequality. Holden notices economic inequality in his dorm one year at Pencey. “I roomed with this boy, Dick Slagle, that had these very inexpensive suitcases. He used to keep them under the bed, instead of the rack, so that nobody’d see them standing next to mine” (141). Holden realizes that there is people less fortunate than him up close. He feels pity on Dick Slagle and tries to cheer him up by putting his own suitcases under the bed. Katniss actually experiences the economic inequality by being less fortunate in the series. She lives in District 12, which is a lot less wealthy in comparison to the people who live in the Capitol. The president of Panem, President Snow, prefers the more fortunate, so Katniss does not experience the luxuries of life due to class instability. The last flaw to be mentioned is that people will always happen to be against one another. Holden found this out in Phoebe’s elementary school written on a wall. “I went down by a different staircase, and I saw another ‘Fuck you’ written on the wall… you couldn’t even rub out even half the ‘Fuck you’ signs in the world. It’s impossible” (262). This is the point where Holden realizes that there is always going to be something pessimistic towards oneself. There is always going to be obstacles in life. Katniss obviously struggles with this as she rebels against Panem to make an end towards the injustice and the prejudice between the wealthy and poor. The obstacle is the Capitol’s response to the rebellion, which was violence through the Peacekeepers. Holden and Katniss face the reality of facing the flaws of society through different perspectives, but they both experience the negative sides instead of the positive sides.
In summary, yes, the “Holden model” does hold up for basis of teenage angst. The typical teenager experiencing angst yearns to be understood, realizes the flaws in society, and deals with his or her psychological issues in their own way. All of the characters have shared this with Holden in some form. Hence, the teenage angst figure is still a long lasting, universal character trait for several literary works.