Holden Caulfield Fella

Robert Zavaleta

Mrs. Kehrmeyer

AP Language

29 March, 2018

There is a psycho in every one of us

Human beings rely on the most complicated known machinery; a human brain. Without the brain, simple tasks such as moving our body, breathing, and trying to eat food would be impossible. The brain controls our movements, is an indicator to senses whether it would be pain, smell or pleasure, and is responsible for the release of emotion. As important our brains are and as it continues to grow more powerful, it is very vulnerable to illnesses that have been caused by actions that affects the individual negatively and leaves them in trauma. The brain holds so many secrets and mysterious to how it truly functions, how certain things can affect

it, and the symptoms of when individuals are mentally ill. People with a mental illness can hold explanations to questions that have remained unsolved and a particular fella holds some answers, Holden Caulfield, the main character in J.D.

Salinger’s novel Catcher in the Rye. Holden is lost in a big world with a mind of a child that he is desperately protecting but yet suffers from the pain that is caged in his head. Holden is depicted as a troubled, socially-awkward, rebellious kid who questions his life and hides behind the tears of a clown. Salinger discloses the crux of Holden's scared state early on in the novel by outlining Holden's childhood, ". . . what my lousy childhood was like. . ." Then, continues on to enumerate on the episode involving his brother Allie's death, "I slept in the garage the night he died.¨ (Salinger 39). This depiction leads readers to be in the shoes of Holden as it is a world of confusion, anger, and depression. Salinger deliberately sets up Holden’s troubled lifestyle to be comprehended by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory as

". . . the belief that unconscious forces in our personalities influence our motives and behavior" (Nevid 468).
J.D.

Salinger’s personal life was very different from other author’s lives, in fact, his life was nearly identical to that of Holden. He belonged to a wealthy family, did not excel in school, did not have a healthy relationship with his parents, and his personality was different from others in society. Salinger’s early years as a child first sparked his conflicted personality. When Salinger was enrolled into a private school, he never had good grades. When he enrolled at New York University’s Washington Square College, he dropped out stating, “It was a waste of time” and this wasn’t the only college that he dropped out. “Choosing, for no apparent reason, Ursinus College in Pennsylvania. Again, he dropped out” (Lutz). Salinger’s school problems relates to Holden’s difficult time at Pencey prep. school. Holden did not excel in school, flunk, and didn’t seem very interested. He eventually dropped out of Pencey Prep. school as he made a dramatic exit, screaming , ¨sleep tight, ya morons!¨ (Salinger 59). This is of course not the only similarity to which the author shares with Holden. Salinger was a very different person as he had a mindset that was “unique.” That mindset shifted when Salinger was drafted into the United States Army when World War II erupted. The exposure of war left a scar on Salinger’s mental state. “Before the war, J.D. Salinger had been known as a loner. He was often thought of as being somewhat arrogant” (Wilson). Salinger’s arrogance gives a page of

Holden’s personality as Holden wasn’t a very popular kid at Pencey and was an oddball as most of his classmates had different perspectives on him. Other than being different from the rest of society, both Salinger and Holden were affected by mental conditions. After his service in the military, “Salinger did not escape the war without some trauma, and when it ended he was hospitalized after suffering a nervous breakdown” (Biography.com). Although not suffering the same conditions as Salinger did, Holden suffers through a troubled mental state and trauma that he suffered in his childhood such as the death of his little brother, Allie.
Speaking of the death of Holdenś brother, it compromised with Holden’s mental state and personality. The results have led to Holden to grow more emotionally unstable and consequently he becomes violent. An example of Holden’s lack of control of his emotions was the night he slept in the garage after the death of his brother, “. . . I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it. I even tried to break all the windows on the station wagon we had that summer . . . It was a very stupid thing to do, I'll admit, but I hardly didn't even know I was doing it. . . " (Salinger 39). The logical explanation of Holden’s troubled personality is answered in Nevid’s novel, Psychology Concepts and Application, as it is stated that a problematic personality is a large part to the Freudian theory, "that personality is largely determined by events and experiences that occur during the first five or six years of life" (Nevid 468). Holden is aware of his actions but he is unable to develop reactions or simple thoughts due to his unstable mentality. Holden is not also filled with anger and grief within himself, but he is shown to have aggression towards with ease and without thought. This is a prime example to when he was discusses about his ¨friend” Stradlater, “. . . I tried to sock him, with all my might, right smack in the toothbrush, so it would split his goddam throat open" (Salinger 43). This behavior reflects on Freud’s theory as his actions surfaced from the “unconscious¨ because it a part of our mind where "much of the contents of the mind mired in the unconscious, we remain unaware of our deepest wishes, ideas, and urges" (Nevid 470). There are certain times where the “unconscious” force would take over Holden’s actions, thoughts, and behavior, however it would lead to flashbacks as well. According to Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature, to analyze psychological conflicts within literary works, for instance, a flashback, " . . interruption of the chronological sequence of events by the interjection of events or scenes of an earlier occurrence often in the form of reminiscence" (Webster). Holden experiences various flashbacks throughout the development of his story, for example, "My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder's mitt . . . You'd have liked him . . .” (Salinger 38-39). This quote characterizes Holden’s character, however he is overshadowed by being a teenager who uses foul languages, consumes alcohol, and a smoker. Nevertheless it gives readers the perspective that Holden is having a conversation with them. Overall, Holden is unstable as he can’t control his behavior, thoughts, actions, and emotions, as his traumatic experiences prevents him from truly understanding them.