Holden Caulfield Psychology

Mental health is an important aspect of one’s wellbeing that may be significantly impacted by a traumatic experience. The author J.D. Salinger illustrates this idea in his novel The Catcher in the Rye, which focuses on the life of the depressed protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Holden experiences the death of his young brother Allie and struggles with transitioning from his innocent childhood to his materialistic adulthood. This transition eventually influences his mental state of mind, which is evident by his lack of motivation in school, and results in him suffering from loneliness, frustration and alienation. The psychoanalytic lens discusses an individual's actions based on their conscious and unconscious mind. The Catcher in the Rye can be

better analyzed through the psychoanalytic lens rather the existential lens, and this is exemplified by Holden’s desire to avoid inevitable change, his resultant isolation and his battle between his conscious and unconscious mind.
Holden has a fear of change and desire to avoid transitioning into adulthood. His anxiety regarding growing up prevents him from realizing that doing so is necessary for him to gain maturity. Firstly, Holden has a desire for consistency. In the novel, he expresses his admiration for museums as he thinks to himself, “The best thing about the museum was that everything always stayed right where it was” (Salinger 121). He appreciates that museums are places where everything is frozen in history, making them expectable, reliable and unchangeable. The environment of museums not only feels comfortable to him, but also gives him a sense of familiarity. He loves the unalterable nature of museums, likely because it is so contrary to his personal experiences. Before this point in the novel, there were several changes in Holden’s life which caused him to fear taking control of his life and daily life tasks such as going to college, working and starting a family. Thus, he believes that growing up will make his life more difficult. Secondly, Holden wants his girlfriend, Sally, to run away with him and escape the adult world. In the novel, he proposes the idea to Sally and she rejects it, suggesting that they should wait until they are grown up (Salinger 132). In response, Holden calls Sally a “pain in the ass” (Salinger 132). He believes her idea “would not be the same at all” as his (Salinger 133). Holden is disappointed by Sally’s refusal to run away with him, as well as frustrated by her suggestion to wait until they are older, because he wants to escape the materialistic world of adults. He believes that adults are selfish and inconsiderate hypocrites, and unrealistically desires to run away and avoid accepting his own transition into adulthood. Finally, Holden’s desire to resist change is evident by his negative opinion of adults. In the novel, he tells children regarding adults, “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody” (Salinger 212). He wants safety for himself and desires to protect the innocence of children from his perceived phoniness of adults. Thus, he suggests to children that they avoid sharing their thoughts with adults, because he believes that adults are inauthentic and selfish and will, rather than assisting to resolve a problem, attribute irresponsibility and immaturity to them. He struggles with an internal battle between the innocence of childhood and adolescence and the phoniness of adulthood. This battle causes him to lead a life believing in falsehood to the point where he becomes a psychiatric patient. Holden’s appreciation for consistency, desire to run away and low opinion of adults exemplify his desire to avoid change and growing up as well as illustrate his resulting poor mental state, and this concept is best understood through the psychoanalytic lens.
As a result of this attitude, Holden is an isolated individual. He doesn’t enjoy or tend to go to events others find important because he prefers not to be surrounded by fake people. In the novel, he recalls to himself, “Anyway, the Saturday of the football game with Saxon Hall was supposed to be a big deal around Pency. It was the last game of the year, and you were supposed to commit suicide or something if old Pency didn’t win” (Slinger 3). Though the Saxon Hall game is significant for Pency, Holden questions why so much importance is given to the game and leaves the game early. He believes that the people he sees at the game are fake and do not give enough attention to their children, so he prefers to stay away from such individuals who only look to fulfill their own desires. Secondly, Holden believes that he is an outsider in society whom others can not understand. In the novel, Holden’s former English teacher tells him, “Life is like a game, everyone has to follow the rules…if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about? Nothing. No game” (Salinger 8). Though Holden agrees with some of his teacher’s statement, his disagrees with the idea that there is not a reasonable game for everyone. Holden’s isolation is revealed as he feels depressed, lonely and as though he will always be a player on the opposing team who no one will ever understand. Lastly, the sudden death of his brother Allie causes him to experience isolation. Allie died at age eleven from leukemia, and this prevents Holden from connecting with others. Holden thinks to himself in the novel, “That’s what nearly drove me crazy. All the visitors could get in there and turns on their radio and all and then go someplace nice for dinner-everybody except for Allie,” (Salinger 156). Holden is unable to properly move past Allie’s death and seeing others moving on, growing and experiencing new things irritates and depresses him. Holden feels alone and isolated without Allie, and is also unable to form meaningful connections with those around him. The loss of his brother also causes him to become mentally disturbed. Holden says, "Then all of the sudden, something very spooky started happening… Every time I'd get to the end of a block I'd make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I'd say to him ‘Allie, don't let me disappear…’ And then when I'd reach the other side of the street without disappearing, I'd thank him."(Salinger 127). Holden also admits that he would often talk to himself out loud when he felt stressful and disconnected as if talking to Allie, as this made him feel better. Holden is emotionally and mentally attached to his brother. He feels him in every moment of his life, as he keeps Allie’s red hunting hat and baseball matt with him as a souvenir. Holden sees innocence through Allie’s eyes, for a virtuous and an honest boy had left him. Seeing that he lost some of the dearest things in life, he prefers to embrace death over life. He wishes to live in a way in which he could maintain his innocence and purity as it’s impossible in the world he lives in currently. Holden desires to die over living as he views it as the most effective way of rescuing himself from pain that he has gone through every day in a phony world. Therefore, Holden finds Allie to be a savior in his life. Holden’s unique experiences and attitude towards those around him influence his opinion of himself as an outsider and cause him to be isolated, and this aspect of the novel is best analyzed through the psychoanalytic lens.
Holden also experiences contradiction between his conscious mind and his unconscious mind.

Consciously, he believes that he is innocent and that adults are phony, and does not realize that he is in fact similar to adults in his unconscious desires. He constantly rejects the ideas of lying and of having interest in others’ lives, however at one point in the novel he says, “I am the most terrific liar you have ever seen in your life. It’s awful” (Salinger 16). He lies in attempts to receive someone’s attention. An example is when he lied to Ms. Morrow that his son is one of the best students at Pency, "a bunch of us wanted old Ernie to be president of the class" (Salinger 18) but because he was so modest and shy, he wouldn't let them elect him,” (Salinger 56 - 57). Holden does not realize that his actions are a reflection of an unconscious desire to lie and fit in, and continues to believe that he is the only different, innocent individual. He even mentions that his parents are careless, depressed, nervous and lonely and never respects them due to his idea that they are phony are well, still oblivious to the fact that he expresses many of these traits himself. Furthermore, Holden has a conscious desire and motivation to become rogue, as is evident by his sudden choice to leave Pency for New York City. He hates to go to school but he goes to see his teacher. He doesn’t listen to any of his teacher’s advice, but he keeps him calm. Upon doing so, he says, “Oh, I feel some concern

for my future, all right. Sure. Sure, I do” (Slinger 14). Holden’s ego, which is part of the conscious mind, leads him to see his teacher.
Furthermore, Holden heard some news that Stradlater, who was Holden’s roommate at Pency was going on a date with Holden’s childhood crush ,Jane.

Although Jane never appeared in the novel, but Holden mentions that he used to spend a lot of time her. “She wouldn't move any of her kings... She'd just leave it in the back row. She'd get them all lined up in the back row. Then she'd never use them” (Salinger 31). After Allie and Phoebe, Jane is the closet person to Holden. Holden remembers how he put her checkers in back row. Jane puts a lot of feelings towards that but also she does it only because it looks nice, while Holden sees it as the Kings represent Jane’s innocence and that as long as she does not move her Kings, she will retain her innocence. This shows that Holden’s unconscious is obsessed with anything that could represent as innocence within someone and will use it to reinforce this need to keep his innocence. However, Holden’s obsession with sex, inconsistency and inability to act in their minds, and deliberately deceived pleasure of strangers. Holden does not want to enter the adult world, but continues to act like an adult through his phony actions. From smoking to dancing with girls in the club, he wants to have sexual relationships with any woman. Holden reveals, “If you want to know the truth, I'm a virgin. I really am” (Salinger 89). Although Holden invites Sunny, the prostitute, he was unable to engage in sexual activity with her as he says, “Sexy was about

the last thing I was feeling. I felt much more depressed than sexy” (Salinger 91). Holden felt depressed as he was suffering through his alienation and finds a relationship with Sunny as a savior to his unconscious mind. It is his conscious mind which prohibited him from having a sexual relationship, but Holden’s unconscious desires always attract him to negative paths. Thus, conscious mind all the times attracts him toward positivity, and reality while his unconscious desires leads him to do all the phony things that he hates the most .Holden has to accept the phony world he sees and has to grow up whether he wants or not.
Analyzing The Catcher in the Rye from a psychoanalytical lens gives a greater understanding on Holden’s desire to resist change, alienation and war between his conscious and unconscious mind. Holden is constantly experiencing an internal battle between wanting to stay an adolescent and transitioning into adulthood. He creates a separate world within his own mind in order to distance himself from the real, adult world. His life of falsehood affects his mental health and isolates him from the rest of society. Holden is a teenager who has been affected by a traumatic event, the loss of his younger brother. J.D. Slinger cleverly illustrates the possible effect on mental stability post-trauma. Many other authors have also explored the topic of mental health in their novels. It is a timeless subject that has, in the past, been incorporated into many successful pieces of literature.