Holden Caulfield Deception

Holden’s pathway to deception   

    Depression, a common mental disorder that presents depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite,low energy, and poor concentration. This mental illness demonstrates to affect teens as much as it affects adults. Studies show that 20 percent of teens will experience teen depressive disorder before they reach adulthood. “Holden's psychologically disturbed state has been advanced as the source both of his insight and of his lack of insight.”(Shaw)When you deal with depression, you often find it difficult to live an everyday normal life, somewhat like Holden Caulfield. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, narrates on the main character persona

of Holden Caulfield, a hostile and negative person, who suffers from severe depression trying to overcome Life. Holden’s experiences with many schools, his observations of his friends, and his love for late brother Allie lead to Holden’s own mental end . Evidence displays that Holden Caulfield is mentally disturbed and shows many signs of it throughout the novel. He emerges as an adolescence lost in his own private world of pain and suffering, yet ostensibly he was able to provide himself with all the luxuries and splendors of American society. Holden is presented as a unsuccessful person who battles to stay upbeat in society. This can reflect that Holden can't manage to get by in life. Throughout the book, it is obvious that Holden is running from so many things such as growing up and people who are phonies but his revert to alcohol, sex and violence lead him to the major fall.
Holden Caulfield has a complex human relationship with his emotions.On one hand, he is overwhelmed by the pain infliction that his emotions can cause, but on the other hand when he tries to shut off these emotions he feels numb which can be equally as devastating for him.

Loneliness is something that is recurring throughout the novel and in some ways, Holden’s loneliness is a manifestation of the alienation he feels from the people around him. Throughout the novel, Holden is separated from those around him and is constantly in search for a way to fit into a world which he feels that he doesn’t belong. A large portion of the novel focuses on Holden’s ongoing quest for some form of companionship. This results in him moving from one meaningless relationship to another which only serves to increase his loneliness. Holden uses this alienation from the world around him as a defence chemical mechanism in order guild to protect himself. He finds interacting with other people  confusing and overwhelming, so by alienating himself from people he does not have to face up to this. Mr Antolini, “He was about the best teacher I ever had..He was a pretty young guy, not much older than my brother D.B., and you could kid around with him without losing respect for him.”This is how Holden describes Mr Antolini before the night when he sleeps over at the Antolini’s. In the middle of the night Holden wakes up finding Mr Antolini patting him on the head. Holden finds this very awkward and quickly

comes up with an excuse to leave the house in the middle of the night. Suddenly he thinks that Mr Antolini is a pervert. We think that Holden has a hard time dealing with the fact that Mr Antolini behaved so strange, he’s confused and don’t really know what to believe. Whether or not Mr Antolini was a pervert, this act had an impact on their relationship, and Holden felt betrayed once again. Jane was a close friend of Holden several summers before. Holden frequently reminisces about spending time with her. Jane is one of the few people whom Holden speaks about in entirely positive terms; he is in love with her yet lacks the emotional maturity to pursue a relationship with her. Much like he views his sister Phoebe, Holden sees Jane with a sense of purity and innocence.A great deal of Holden’s loneliness and alienation can be traced cover to the death of his younger blood brother Allie. Holden was devastated by the tragedy, tragedy, which has already happened by the time we are introduced to Holden. He has essentially shut down and repeatedly mentions how important it is for him not to get too attached to people. A good example of this would be where Holden says, “Don’t tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody”(Salinger,2)
Holden desires to hold on to his innocence and not develop any mature bonds to avoid the loss of someone he cares about.

However, by holding on to his youth and not letting himself move on he is holding himself back from many opportunities and forcing himself into loneliness. "The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish." but holden realizes that the only thing changing every time he goes back is himself.(Salinger 135) He is beginning to mature and truly losing his innocence.. His relationship with Sunny, a prostitute, showed more maturity. He was able to recognize that what he was doing was against his principles and was confident enough to remove himself from the situation “Look, I don’t feel very much like myself tonight. I’ve had a rough night. Honest to God. I’ll pay you and all, but do you mind very much if we don’t do it?” (Salinger 107). The Carousel Shows Holden’s acceptance of his loss of innocence and his realization that he will not be able to save all the children from growing up and experiencing life’s challenges “The thing with Kids is, if they want to grab or the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall [off], they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them.” (Salinger 232).Reaching for the gold ring shows them reaching for their hopes, dreams

and aspirations. Adults have to let kids reach for their goals, even if that means watching them fall, because otherwise they will not be able to grow and achieve anything. Holden realizes that it is time for him to move on to adulthood and that his time for youth and innocence has come and gone.Death haunts Holden ever since the loss of his sibling; he fears connecting with people, perceives both teens and adults as "phonies," and searches for meaning in the world of distortion in which he finds himself. As a matter of note, his sibling Allie has died of leukemia, the disease from which many survivors of the atomic bomb died. Certainly, his death and the death of his friend James Castle has a profound effect upon Holden.James Castle committed suicide after being bullied by some boys at Elkton Hills school. Holden's thoughts must have drifted from Allie, whom he loved, to the only other death he had experienced up to that point in his life. As a teenager, both experiences with death were very traumatic and involved young people who should have lived out long lives. Teens usually feel invincible but Holden witnessed death very early on in life. He even describes James Castle's teeth having been strewn around him on the steps where he was found (170).Because of these experiences, Holden must view death as an escape from a dark and tough world. Even throughout the book Holden complains about almost everyone and everything. He hates living, he sees no real purpose in life, and can't come to a decision about whether to live life (in reality) or simply try to avoid it.