Holden Caulfield Psychology

Mental illness is an internal struggle that has symptoms that shows on the outside even though the real battle is inside that person’s mind. In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the confused teenager, Holden Caulfield, narrates through a three day period of his life right after he gets kicked out of another preparatory school. These three days also take placeright before Christmas, when a person should be with their family and friends. Holden spends this time wandering New York City in a depressed state until he ends up having a mental breakdown due to his poor coping mechanisms. During this time, the youth attempts to cope with his depression through his frustration with phoniness, immature reactions to the adult situations he is put

into, and alienation from the people that surround him.
Holden often feels hurt by the society around him, and therefore he calls things phony in order to shield himself from the harm they might cause him.

However, this coping mechanism does more harm than benefit as he “is quick to expose gestures that reveal them,” sometimes he may be too quick to uncover this phoniness as it puts distance between Holden and society before the helpful parts of society can help him (Mulligan). School is a main part of Holden’s life that he rejects as phony, even though school is beneficial to one’s life. After being expelled from Pencey Preparatory School, Holden visits Mr. Spencer, his history teacher, and has a conversation about his schooling with comments on one of his old schools that he left, Elkton Hills. Holden mentions that in Elkton Hills “[He] was surrounded by phonies” and even goes as far as to complain that “[Phonies] were coming in the god*** window” (Salinger 19). This rejection, by calling his past schools and current school phony, is a defense mechanism to stop himself from being hurt when he is kicked out of another school. By rejecting his schools, this teenager is trying to protect himself, but he is only pushing away an opportunity that can help him and his

future.
Not only is Holden rejecting the schools he goes to as a whole, but he is also rejecting the people within his schools. Holden is an outsider in the schools he goes to. He has a minimal amount of friends and feels rejected by the rest of the people in the school. In his frustration with not belonging to a group of friends, he insults these groups calling them “dirty little god*** cliques,” as if these groups were beneath him (Salinger 170). The negative connotation of the words “dirty little god***” words makes the subject their describing, cliques, seem undeserving of Holden. This judgment raises Holden up in his own mind, creating a barrier to the hurt he feels for not being included in ones of these groups.
More specifically than all his peers, the frustrated teen feels specifically rejected by the women in his world, and when he is rejected by a woman his emotions become complicated. Then, Holden cannot understand what he is feeling which leads to frustration and calling the women or woman phony. The queen of phoniness in Holden’s world is his ex-girlfriend Sally Hayes. When he goes out on a date with Sally, all Holden is looking for it is to make a good, intelligent connection with her, but this does not happen. Holden wants to believe that Sally is intelligent and thought she was because “she knew quite a lot about the theater and plays and literature and all that stuff” (Salinger 137). But in reality, Holden knew that Sally was phony before their date, Sally exhibits phoniness that she loves to socially appeal to everyone. One of her first actions that Holden describes as phony is her writing a long letter asking him coming to her house to trim the Christmas tree. Then while on the date with Holden, she meets a guy she recognizes and their conversation consists of names of people they know and places they have been. Finally, when Holden asks Sally to run away with him, she says yes but that they have to finish schooling first. This is essentially a no to Holden as he want to leave now, so he begins to increasingly criticize her in order to protect himself and his emotions.
Holden is rejected by women he knows and women he just met, which leads to more frustration and confusion. While staying in a hotel, Holden meets three women down at the bar the hotel has. He hits on them and tries to make some connection with them in an emotional or intelligent way. His attempt at a connection fails and the teen resorts to saying that “you could hardly tell which was the stupidest of the three of them” (Salinger 95). On top of the fact that the attempt to make a connection with the women failed, Holden finds out that the only reason the women are in New York is to see celebrities, which he considers extremely stupid. With the two of these aspects combined, Holden feels frustrated and rejected and calls these women ignorant in order to feel better about the situation.
Another coping mechanism that Holden has is to act immaturely to the adult situations he is put into.

By acting immaturely, Holden is not taking responsibility of his actions and is only distancing himself further from the people around him. The first immature reaction from Holden is his reluctance to go home throughout the whole novel. After he is expelled from Pencey, Holden thinks of calling Phoebe multiple times, but never does because their parents would pick up. Holden thinks of “hanging up if [his] parents answered, but that wouldn't've worked, either,” as he does not want his parents to realize he left Pencey early (Salinger 87). Avoiding the fact that he got kicked out of Pencey is immature, however it is his way of coping with being expelled from yet another school. Likewise, Holden does not tell his parents that he left Pencey early and is now in New York. Holden spends the rest of the novel hiding out from his parents and living off money he gets from Grandma. Again, this immature action is his way of safeguarding himself, but this time he is protecting himself from the disappointment of his

parents.
Sex is an adult topic that is a confusing part of every teenager’s transition into adulthood. Holden is confused by sex and questions it often while he is hiding out from his parents in New York. Holden consents to having a prostitute, Sunny, sent to his room but “ [He] asks her to stop when she starts ‘getting funny. Crude and all,’ that is when she proceeds from words to actions” (Edwards). He then tries to say that his reason for not having sex is because Sunny made him feel “more depressed than sexy” (Salinger 125). This is extremely immature as it shows that Holden isn’t ready for sex but keeps pushing himself into situations where he could have sex, then he does not go through with the act and makes himself feel more depressed.
Similarly, Holden has many questions about sex in general and turns to one of his friends, Charles Luce, to ask these questions. Yet again, Holden goes about asking these questions in the wrong way and drives Charles away. He pesters Luce about his own sex life to the point that Luce remarks “when in the h*** are you going to grow up” (Salinger 189). Having another person remark on Holden’s immaturity shines light on the fact that the troubled teen does not understand social cues and social situations. Holden does not understand the social cues that Luce is getting mad at his questions, which leads to Luce leaving the bar. The fact that Holden cannot understand the simple social cues even after he is repeatedly asked to stop asking questions; reveals that Holden is too immature for adult situations like sex. By pushing himself into instances where sex is involved, Holden is only damaging himself and the relationships with the people around him because he is not capable of handling adult situations.
By the end of Holden retelling his story, he has been placed into a mental hospital to help him with his depression and lack of ambition. Although this is suppose to help him, Holden decides he is not going to change his ways. The troubled teenager avoids this change by asking “how do you know what you’re going to do till you do it,” in response to his psychoanalyst (Salinger 276). This unsure answer provides an insight that Holden will most likely continue to slack off in school. Holden’s avoidance to facing the consequences of his past actions and his fast approaching future exposes that he is not mature enough to move into adulthood.