Holden Caulfield Depression

In J.D Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, it can be inferred that the main character, Holden Caulfield, is Salinger himself. The whole book is Salinger’s narrative told through the lens of Holden Caulfield. Everything that Salinger felt was told through a teenage boy which made the book controversial since the author is an adult talking about adult issues and things you wouldn’t expect a teenager to talk about during this time period. For example, the theme of depression is displayed in Salinger’s novel which during his time period, was considered an “adult disease” but not only did Salinger write about depression, he wrote his life experiences through Caulfield. So to perceive the significance of Holden’s character, it is vital to know

and the life of J.D. Salinger and the book The Catcher in the Rye, to understand how his and Holden’s life correlate to each other.
Before comparing the lives of the author and Caulfield, knowing the book is a necessity. The Catcher in the Rye is about the story of Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, who was recently expelled from Pencey School in Pennsylvania for his poor grades and it follows his journey back to New York City. As he strolls around New York, he looks to find someone to talk to about his struggle with the concept of growing up and death. He questions people of different statuses about adulthood, such as a nurse, a nun, and a prostitute etc., and they all have similar answers such, “you’ll be okay” and so on. Something notable to point out is that Holden struggles to express his curiosity as he never finds a direct way to ask for himself so he can never get his message through. Despite his interest in adulthood, he wishes to stop time rather than accomodate to the lifestyle of a grown-up where sex and money are primary concerns. This can be inferred when he says, “everything is always right where it was”(Salinger 121), when he was thinking about the eskimo figures at the National History Museum. He later progresses his thoughts by adding, “Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that exact. You'd just be different, that's all.” Holden isn’t subject to change, he wants things a certain way. In other words, “The central conflict is between an adolescent and adult society” (Alsen 55) since Holden doesn’t want to change as he is entering adulthood which is one of the underlying themes of the story.
Jerome David Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye, was born on January 1, 1919 in New York just like his fictional counterpart, Holden Caulfield. He was the youngest of two children born to Sol and Mariam Salinger just like Holden who is also a child from a family of four. As a child he and his family never really had financial struggles given that his father ran a thriving cheese and ham importing business. During this time period the United States was in a Great Depression and it wasn’t common for many people to have money, yet alone be wealthy. This situation is mirrored in The Catcher in the Rye when it is referenced that Holden comes from a family of wealth. Despite being privileged in socioeconomic status, Salinger wasn’t so fortunate in terms of education. As a matter of fact, he was dropped from McBurney School for his poor grades and was shipped off by his parents to Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania. This is similar to Holden’s experience the only difference being him getting kicked out of his School in Pennsylvania and sent to New York. These short descriptions provide an almost identical match to the childhood of J.D Salinger which substantially shows that Salinger is writing about himself. Remembering that Salinger is a real adult and Holden is just a teenager, Salinger writes about preserving innocence since he most certainly lost his. Continuing the biographical context of Salinger, it should be stated that he fought in World War II. He was present during the D-Day invasion of Utah Beach. He lived through the horrors of war and when he came back from Europe back to the United States he was haunted by it so he chose to write books to reserve himself. According to Kenneth Slawenski, “For J.D. Salinger, writing The Catcher in the Rye was an act of cleansing. Through it, he relieved himself of a weight he has carried since the end of the war. The crush of Salinger’s faith, threatened by the terrible events of war, so full of blackness and death, is reflected in Holden’s loss of faith, caused by the death of his brother.” Again, Holden is the epitome of Salinger’s life and of course a teenager is not going to experience war so to create the embodiment of that, he made the causation of Holden’s depression based off of the death of his brother whereas his triggering moment was the war.
Other than having similar life experiences, Salinger and Caulfield has similar personalities and share the same viewpoints with each other.

More specifically in their reserved lifestyles. In Slawenski’s biography on Salinger, he includes a quote saying, “The Catcher in the Rye, recommending that readers who enjoy a book call up the author; then he spent his next 20 years avoiding the telephone.” That’s just one of many examples of Salinger’s disapproval of interactions. He was known to be very conserved about his life and he didn’t like to talk about it. As a matter of fact it is said that, “in 1987 he successfully blocked the publication of an unauthorized biography by Ian Hamilton”. This is a mindset he lived with because in The Catcher in the Rye, which was written almost 40 years before he rejected the autobiography proposal, Caulfield didn’t want to get in too much detail about his life which is shown when he says, “you’ll probably want to know what my lousy childhood was like...but I don’t feel like talking about it” (Salinger 1). This says a lot considering his childhood is main reason why he is depressed yet he dismisses it. The same inference of Holden’s conserved self can be made later when he later says, “I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it”(Salinger 122). Other than sharing their reclusive personalities, he and Salinger were very self conscious and they needed something to cope with it. For Holden it was his hat. He says he only wore it when quote, “I knew I wouldn’t meet anyone that knew me”(Salinger 122) . When Holden isn’t with it he hides his persona until he puts his red cap on which he creates this perception of himself that makes him confident in contrast of his true self. He later says, "I had already taken off my hunting hat, so as not to look suspicious or anything" (Salinger 157). By saying this he displays how much he feels insecure about himself. With a vibrant color like red on his head, he is

bound to stand out in any crowd. The hat symbolizes Holden's personal identity. For Salinger it was his writing. He used it to show his true feelings about the world as opposed to just talking to someone about it, evidence being his novel The Catcher in the Rye. He prefered not to be too close to people. Relating back to the quote where Salinger recommends the reader to call up a book of an author, another quote in the Catcher in the Rye hints at opening up his self conscious self when Holden says, “what really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re done reading it, you wish that the author was a terrific friend of yours and you can call him up of the phone whenever you felt like it.” He later rejects that idea by living a private life and avoiding the phone calls. In a different array of thinking but not too drastic, The Catcher in the Rye, is a critically acclaimed book but it doesn’t have a adaptation in the entertainment industry. This is specifically because Salinger refused for it to happen. This goes back to the text when Holden explicitly says in the book, “If there’s one thing I hate. It’s the movies. Don’t even mention them to me”(Salinger 2). To even further prove that Salinger viewed himself in Holden. Ironically, when Salinger did consider an adaptation of the novel, it was a play and not a movie, he wanted to play Holden even though he was 20 years older than his character. Another similarity clearly shown is their interest in young women. Salinger had a deep fascination with young women. As a matter of fact, he had a close affinity with an 18 year old, Joyce Maynard who later moved in with him. Salinger continued to have relationships like that. Holden shares the same feelings and even though he is young himself, Salinger’s infatuation with younger women is reflected in Holden. He had a deep fascination of his love interest Jane Gallagher, as a young girl proving even more that Salinger and Caulfield were the same person.
The struggle of Holden Caulfield echoes the journey of the author. The character and the author experience the same tragedy: broken innocence. Salinger coped with his broken innocence by writing The Catcher in the Rye since he has seen more of the evils of mankind than the average person.