Holden's Suffering

The Catcher In The Rye

Everybody has responsibilities. They reflect on a person’s maturity and ability to do such duties, but these tasks can appear to be difficult to different individuals. Holden Caulfield happens to be one who can’t seem to grasp onto the idea of being more like an adult and someone to rely on. He suffers from grief, on account of his brother Allie’s death, and that seems to draw him away from the real world. This makes doing certain things a “normal-minded” teenager might do more challenging for Holden, due to the fact that he has such a negative mind-set on life. In the novel, The Catcher In The Rye, Holden goes through a vast amount mental suffering that prevents him from completing his responsibilities, such as school.

Grieving is a process of deep sorrow that usually involves getting over the death of a loved one.

Thomas Crook, PhD, states that when someone dwells on the loss of someone that meant a great deal to him or her, "The result can be chronic preoccupation, sadness, or even depression." As the reader can see, this mourning can affect the way a person thinks, feels, responds to certain situations, and how he or she accomplishes their responsibilities. This means that daily things, like work and school, can be affected. Also, grieving doesn’t just go away. It can stay with a person for years and years and get a little better every now and then, but never completely go away. Holden experiences this first-hand with his brother, Allie, who died young with

leukemia.
Holden is deeply afflicted by his state of tribulation and coming to terms with his depression, in result of his grief for Allie. He was very fond of his brother and puts him on a pedestal when he describes him. “He was terrifically intelligent…He was also the nicest…He never got mad at anybody,”(Salinger 38) basically, Holden is glorifying his brother as one of the best kids you could’ve ever met and losing that really took a toll on him. “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 39) Holden admits. This displays the pain he felt. Though, after a few years, he still is showing signs of despair and grief. He seems to have just keep building all of his emotions up for quite some time and gets kicked out of a few schools, can’t seem to maintain social relationships, or even make rational decisions here and there. As his former teacher, Mr. Antolini, discusses with Holden his lack of interest in school, “…you were making absolutely no effort at all. Cutting classes. Coming unprepared to all your classes.” (Salinger 186) Indeed, Holden appears to be drifting further from his responsibilities and falling deeper into the hole of grief. These simple tasks are difficult to Holden due to his lack of happiness and sense of bitterness towards life because of his grief.
Holden’s struggle to keep a balance between handling his loss and keeping up with his responsibilities in life is very significant in The Catcher In The Rye because it makes the story more powerful.

As well, it gives us perspective on someone who’s going through these predicaments and as readers we can either relate and/or sympathize with Holden. J.D. Salinger makes the reader feel like they’re in Holden’s shoes with descriptive scenarios of his breakdowns. For an instance, Holden is walking down the street and gets the feeling like he’s going to disappear and calls out to his deceased brother, “Allie, don’t let me disappear. Allie, don’t let me disappear…Please, Allie.” (Salinger 198) These moments help tell Holden’s story in a more realistic and meaningful standpoint and allow for the audience of this novel to grasp onto his

mentality.
Throughout this novel, readers get a glance into the mind of Holden Caulfield. Even though it’s rather depressing, they’re able to step inside this character’s shoes and live in his mind for a couple hundred pages. This allows insight into his struggles of dealing with his responsibilities under the impression of grief and sorrow. It’s challenging for him to keep up in school with his misery and departed brother on his mind. By the end, the audience understands that Holden got the help that he desperately needed for his issues. Considering that fact, they know how intense his grief had become, thus, not allowing him to complete duties of his.

Works Cited
Salinger, J.D. The Catcher In The Rye. New York: The Little, Brown and Company, 1991. Print.
Crook, Thomas. Prevention. November 2011. Web. 18 September 2014.