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An essay on mental health awareness essay
An essay on mental health awareness essay
Concept paper about mental health awareness
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The Catcher in the Rye is a novel that follows the journey of Holden Caulfield, a sixteen year old boy between the end of his fall semester and Christmas break at his boarding school. Through a first person point of view, this book is able to focus on moral issues such as the process of maturing, change, and phoniness in the world. While focusing on these moral issues, the novel also focuses on how Holden is forced to handle these situations. Due to his poor mental health, Holden does not handle these situations maturely. In fact, Holden has actions and behaviors that match those of psychological behaviors such as PTSD and depression. These symptoms and his overall mental health is believed to be a result of his upbringing and his childhood. …show more content…
It is quite evident that Holden is a flawed teen with mental health issues that is faced with moral issues before he is ready to maturely deal with them. Holden's mental health plays a big role in the handling of such moral issues and the treatment of others who are involved with these issues. As a result, Holden Caulfield’s mental health plays an important role within his journey to loss of innocence. Holden’s poor mental health is quite evident in social alienation along with avoiding contact with people.
Throughout the book, Holden avoids contact with people and even labels people as “phony”. This causes Holden to alienate himself and doesn’t allow him to connect with anybody. He labels people as “phony” because it allows him to avoid social contact and connecting with people. In fact, Holden fears sharing his feelings with people and has developed a strategy that allows him to stay socially isolated. Due to this strategy, he has an emotional breakdown and other mental issues. Additionally, this social isolation makes Holden feel lonely. This loneliness is also in part due to the loss of his brother Allie and feeling distant with his brother D.B. During his childhood, he had close relationships with his brothers, but as he grew older, these relationships began to fade and he began to socially isolate himself. By distancing himself, Holden begins to develop symptoms associated with depression and other mental disorders. This is quite evident due to the fact that he is telling his life story form a mental hospital. According to J.D. Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye and Other Works, “Holden is telling his story while he is in southern California in a mental hospital”(Haugrud Reiff 57). In the novel itself, it does not mention that Holden is telling the story from a mental hospital but rather mentions the place as “here”. As a result, Holden’s placement in a mental hospital supports the fact that he has mental issues in part due to social
isolation. Holden’s view of other people as “phony” allows him to get kicked out of several boarding schools. To Holden, boarding schools have one job of molding young boys into clear-thinking young men. The advertisements that are posted around the community according to Holden, are therefore falsely advertising the purpose of boarding schools. In fact, Holden states: “You probably heard of it. You’ve probably seen the ads, anyway” (Salinger 4). Holden’s view of Pency as a place presents itself under false pretenses about Holden’s belief of how things are “phony”. He despises boarding schools as false
Holden Caulfield, the teenage protagonist of Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger, struggles with having to enter the adult world. Holden leaves school early and stays in New York by himself until he is ready to return home. Holden wants to be individual, yet he also wants to fit in and not grow up. The author uses symbolism to represent Holden’s internal struggle.
In the novel, Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield is an example of a prosaic rich adolescent boy,with a pedestrian set of problems, but a psychoanalysis reveals that Holden has a plethora of atypical internal conflicts. Internal conflicts that other students at Pencey, such as Stradlater and Ackley, would not normally experience.
The Catcher in the Rye revolves around Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the novel, and his disillusionment. Holden’s disillusionment illustrates that he has a problem accepting such. Aforesaid is based upon multiple factors, most which have brought Holden lasting traumas. A remedy is required for Holden to accept his disillusionment and enable an improvement of his situation. For Holden’s remedy, the consultation of psychologists, and additional specialized health professionals would be the core of an apt remedy for Holden’s psychological and physiological state based upon the numerous causes of such and the everlasting trauma of some of the determinants of aforesaid situation. The origins of Holden’s disillusionment revolved mainly around the death of his younger brother Allie three years ago, of which he still experiences the trauma to this day. His disillusionment is caused by both
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
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is an enthralling and captivating novel about a boy and his struggle with life. The teenage boy ,Holden, is in turmoil with school, loneliness, and finding his place in the world. The author J.D. Salinger examines the many sides of behavior and moral dilemma of many characters throughout the novel. The author develops three distinct character types for Holden the confused and struggling teenage boy, Ackley, a peculiar boy without many friends, and Phoebe, a funny and kindhearted young girl.
This is the first psychiatric hospital admission for the patient, a 17 year-old male. The subject freely admitted himself to care at 13:00 hours on November 28, 1958. Mr. Holden Caulfield arrived at the hospital in the company of his parents--whose consent was necessary given Holden's legal status as a minor--and his younger sister Phoebe. His induction took place without any incident.
Salinger is not specific on the mental issue Holden has that landed him in an institution, one can conquer that Holden is suffering from clinical depression as seen through abnormalities in his cognitive behavior, his shifting moods, and his disruptive sleep patterns. None of Holden’s colleagues, teachers, or acquaintances probably would have calculated he was suffering severely from a mental illness. This should be a lesson to always remember, people everywhere always have something going on that no one is unaware of, and let that be advice for whatever is thought or about someone in the
In J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, the main character Holden Caufield believes that innocence is corrupted by society. He exposes his self-inflicted emotional struggles as he is reminiscing the past. For Holden, teenage adolescence is a complicated time for him, his teenage mentality in allows him to transition from the teenage era to the reality of an adult in the real world. As he is struggling to find his own meaning of life, he cares less about others and worries about how he can be a hero not only to himself but also to the innocent youth. As Holden is grasping the idea of growing up, he sets his priorities of where he belongs and how to establish it. As he talks about how ‘phony’ the outside world is, he has specific recollections that signify importance to his life and he uses these time and time again because these memories are ones that he wont ever let go of. The death of his younger brother Allie has had a major impact on him emotionally and mentally. The freedom of the ducks in Central Park symbolize his ‘get away’ from reality into his own world. His ideology of letting kids grow up and breaking the chain loose to discover for themselves portrays the carrousel and the gold ring. These are three major moments that will be explored to understand the life of Holden Caufield and his significant personal encounters as he transitions from adolescence into manhood.
He is very judgmental and gets bothered very easily. He even complains when it is quiet, “Everybody was asleep or out or home for the weekend, and it was very, very quiet and depressing in the corridor” (66). Being so sensitive makes life hard for Holden. He notices these things especially when he is alone and then complains about these types of things depressing him. The quietness/emptiness bothers him even more when he has nothing to do, “The whole lobby was empty. It smelled like fifty million dead cigars. It really did. I wasn’t sleepy or anything, but I was feeling sort of lousy. Depressed and all. I almost wished I was dead” (118). If Holden had people in his life, he wouldn’t feel so alone and depressed. In addition, he makes himself even more depressed by thinking about the emptiness everywhere. Holden’s internal conflict of being depressed hinders him from his own
The parents of Holden play a significant role pertaining to his mental state. When Holden was just thirteen, Allie passed. According to Mayo Clinic “you’re more likely to develop PTSD if you're lacking a good support system of family and friends”. That was exactly the case for Holden. His parents were going through great grieving themselves and neglected their child in a time of need. That resulted in Holden not getting the support and attention necessary for him to fully grow mentally. Holden mentions his mom's position a few times, saying she “still isn’t over my brother Allie yet” (Salinger
One of the most challenging times during a person’s life is by far being a young adolescent. Teenagers today face so many changes both physical and physiological. In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, the main character, and the narrator, Holden Caulfield, a young teenage boy in the 1950’s, faces many difficulties with not only the world around him, but also within himself. As a troubled 16 year old, Holden Caulfield, is having a very difficult time accepting that he is becoming an adult and still wanting to stay an adolescent. Throughout the entire book, Caulfield struggles with understanding the world around him. He protects himself from the world by being judgmental to everyone around him while feeling safe in the fantasy world he created for himself.
As a matter of fact, Holden’s brother Allie Caulfield had died of leukemia when Holden was thirteen. Holden’s bond with his brother was strong and he talks highly of him saying he was smart, laidback and friendly. As a result, Allie’s death impacted Holden making him severely wounded emotionally (Litchart) “I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it“ (Salinger 22). When, Holden punched the windows it was an outcome of his rage and sorrow when he thought of his brother. Unfortunately, instead of being there for him, Holden’s parents attempted to psychoanalyze him along with sending him away to another school after his brother’s death. “I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage” (Salinger 22). The idea of his parents wanting him to be psychoanalyzed is a feeling of betrayal. Most definitely, Holden’s depression is caused by the heartbroken event in his family as well as his parents lack of
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D.Salinger is told through Holden, the narrative in the novel. Holden is 16 years old boy , and he has lot of problems during his life. He became more depressed and he can’t deal with people and life around him. Based on the novel The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is suffering from depression.
Throughout the entirety of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the reader meets many strange and confusing characters. The strangest, and most important, character the reader will meet is a young boy named Holden Caulfield. Holden, being the protagonist of the novel, is followed through his adventure into New York City. These adventures ultimately take a toll on Holden’s sanity. As the plot advances Holden learns more about life and adulthood, transforming him from a cocky teen into a more caring and respectable individual.