Holden Caulfield's The Catcher In The Rye

Unlike most teenage boys, Holden Caulfield always found himself asking the question, why his little brother died at such a young age. A question like this is not always the easiest to answer especially when nobody has an answer that is comforting. Sadly, a lot of people have to experience tragedies such as this, but it is very rare for people too handle the situation the way that Holden and his family did. No one wanted to deal with his mourning so he was sent to boarding school. Unfortunately this did not help his case at all, but only made him worse. Holden expresses negative feelings including stress, anger, lack of sleep, and feeling detached from other people which is directly caused by his server case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

These symptoms can make the person feel stressed and angry” (Post-Traumatic Stress). Holden increasingly becomes more and more angry throughout the book over small issues that usually do not effect a person. For example, Holden is angered by all of the “phonies” that he has to deal with. One “phony” person that angered Holden in the beginning of the book was his roommate Stradlater. Stradlater was a pretty niece guy and always seemed put together, but was really a secret slob. He would always have a clean shave, but his razor that he used was “rusty as hell and full of lather and hairs and crap. He never cleaned it or anything” (Salinger, 35-36). This typically would not get a person very angry, but Holden was upset that some people could just be so fake. Another event that angered Holden was when he was at Phoebe’s school and saw inappropriate writing all over the school staircase. Most

Holden somehow manages to do all of these things the night after he gets kicked out of Pencey Prep School. He tries many times to go to sleep, but his mind just could not let him stop thinking. This could be related to his PTSD because according to an article written by PhD Matthew Tull, “Many people with PTSD have difficulties falling asleep as compared to people without PTSD” (Tull). After the prostitute leaves Holden’s hotel room, he thinks about Allie and the time that he didn’t let Allie go on the bike ride with them because they were planning on bringing their BB guns (Salinger, 129). After his “flashback” ended, he had a significant amount of trouble falling asleep. Tull also stated that, “They may experience worries or thoughts of their traumatic event as soon as they go to bed” (Tull). Although Holden was not having memories about when Allie died, he was still thinking about events when he disappointed his brother. This was not the only night that Holden had trouble sleeping, but almost all of the times Holden tired to sleep, he just could not stop his mind from thinking. It is not common for someone to have as much difficulty sleeping as Holden does. Holden's long journey from Pencey Prep School in Pennsylvania, to New York, as well as his PTSD