Holden's Mental Breakdown In Catcher In The Rye

Holden spends a majority of the novel on his own. Despite meeting many interesting characters throughout the entirety of the novel, he is never shown making any sort of connection with these characters. With the exception of Phoebe and the nuns, the characters who Holden meets or interacts with only cause him to feel lonelier, which brings Holden even closer to the eventual destruction of his mental state. Holden’s experience at his prestigious high school Pencey Prep is impactful to him as it’s the last time in the novel that he is at a school prior to his mental breakdown. As Holden leaves the campus to travel to New York, he reminiscing his experience by saying “I stood for awhile next to the stairs and took a last look down the goddamn corridor. I was sort of crying, I don’t know why, I put my red hunting hat

This scene illustrates that although it may have seemed like he despised Pencey Prep and its students, he was upset to leave all that company. It reminds Holden that he failed to connect to anyone at Pencey Prep despite attempting to connect with Stradlater and Ackley. Holden is so desperate for intimacy or companionship that he attempts to reach out to complete strangers during his time in New York City. Characters such as Horwitz, the girls at the Lavender Room, Sunny, Carl Luce, and Mr Antolini are examples of characters who Holden failed to connect to. The girls at the Lavender Room are overlooked due to most of the attention being put on Holden’s sexuality and maturity, but this scene also illustrates how desperate Holden is for interaction. The whole scene showed Holden attempting to converse with a blonde woman at the club named Bernice, who he had been dancing with during the night. Bernice is not very intersted in convserving however; she is constantly looking around or saying “What?” everytime Holden attempts to carry on a conversation with her. Holden even sarcastically says to Bernice“You’re a very good conversationalist, you know that?”