How Does Holden Present Trauma In Catcher In The Rye

One of the best known novels in English-speaking countries, J.D Salinger’s Catcher In The Rye deals with Holden Caulfield’s past trauma which is the triggering factor in his depression, anxiety and alienation. Holden tells an unnamed person what has happened in the three days prior to his mental breakdown. Through Holden’s relatable characteristics and Salinger’s narrative treatment, the book continues to engage audiences across generations.

The way that Salinger writes gives the audience a very personal and insightful look into what Holden is feeling. It’s told in the first person, in a confessional style, and utilises digression. This creates a sense of closeness with the protagonist. It’s like Holden is talking directly to the reader.

Salinger’s use of stream of consciousness also makes it feel like it really is coming from the mind of a seventeen-year-old boy:
“I mean girls should smell a certain way - like baby powder, new clothes and perfume … I hate Old Spice … Christ, I must be nuts. All of a sudden I start to imagine myself as the old sailor …”
Holden’s character still engages audiences in the 21st century because he deals with problems adolescents still face - like rebellion, sexuality and loss of innocence. The novel doesn’t feel outdated at all, even though it was written in a very different time.

One of the main focuses of the book is Holden’s alienation from other people, which I think stems from his traumatic past. The loss of his brother Allie to leukaemia causes Holden to disconnect from other people. He doesn’t want to get close to anyone because he doesn’t want to feel the same pain he experienced when Allie died. This effects how he acts with his childhood sweetheart, Jane Gallagher. He talks about her often in the book and very fondly but never actually calls her. I think that this is because he doesn’t want to ruin one of the last friendships he has. He would prefer to keep the fond memories of her than see her again and risk losing her too:
"Jane Gallagher. Jesus ... I couldn't get her off my mind. I really couldn't.
…I oughta go down and say hello to her, at least.
… I'm not in the mood right now," I said. I wasn't, either. You have to be in the mood for those things.”

Holden’s cynical attitude and antisocial behaviour, stemming from his trauma, further prevents him from forming bonds with other people.

He disregards most people because he thinks they are ‘phonies’ - materialistic, shallow and insincere people. To Holden, almost anyone who falls under that category is a phony and isn’t someone he wants to spend time with. However, because of Holden’s trauma, the reader can’t quite trust him. He sees the world through so many layers of protection, he is an unreliable narrator.

Holden experiences both alienation and disillusionment when meeting with people like Sally Hayes, Sunny and Ackley. Holden is so desperate to have human connection yet, when he starts to talk to them, he experiences them as ‘phonies’. This makes him more depressed, continuing his downward spiral. Holden is caught in a trap of his own making.

Holden’s childhood was far from ideal, with Allie dying, his dysfunctional parents and the revelation that he had some “perverty” stuff happen to him when he was a kid. Due to this, he isn't ready to step into adulthood and leave his childhood behind. This is why Holden is mostly alienated from adults and connects more to the innocence of children like the girl at the park and his sister, Phoebe. However, Holden is disillusioned with both adulthood and childhood. He already knows how it feels to be an adult; drinking alcohol, being independent, living by himself and caring for Phoebe, but isn’t ready to immerse himself in it.

But he’s disillusioned with childhood too, because he was disappointed by it and is therefore stuck in a childlike state.

Salinger uses a number of motifs, like falling, to express the themes of the novel. One example of this motif is Holden wanting to stand at the edge of a cliff to ‘catch’ children from falling off and losing their innocence. He wants to save the children from the experiences he has had. The falling motif symbolises Holden’s sense of losing time and ‘falling’ into the adult world.

“…I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.”

My understanding of the novel is that Holden experienced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from Allie’s death, combined with the shock of his room-mate James Castle’s suicide and the possible sexual assaults when he was younger. The tell tale signs of PTSD are feelings of detachment from others, a sense of a limited future, difficulty falling asleep and irritability or outbursts of anger, all of which Holden exhibits.

Holden mentions his sense of a premature death when he is at the train station, reading a health magazine, and convinces himself he is going to die.

His sense of impending doom is another symptom of his PTSD.
“So I started getting worried about my hormones. Then I read this other article about how you can tell if you have cancer or not. It said if you had any sores in your mouth that didn't heal pretty quickly, it was a sign that you probably had cancer. I'd had this sore on the inside of my lip for about two weeks. So figured I was getting cancer.”
I think that his trauma was ultimately the cause of Holden’s emotional breakdown, along with his evident depression.

Due to J.D Salinger’s personal and relatable narrative treatment, Catcher in the Rye continues to engage audiences, even 64 years after it was first published. The way the book deals with alienation and disillusionment in regards to Holden’s past trauma - through the closeness of first person narration and conversational writing among other techniques - creates a personal connection to Holden’s character and helps adolescents relate his troubles to their own.

Author Unknown,. 'The Catcher In The Rye Sexuality And Sexual Identity Quotes,’ 2015, Quote #2, 5 June

2015.
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Aubry, Timothy. 'The Catcher In The Rye: The Voice Of Alienation | The Gilder Lehrman Institute Of American History'. gilderlehrman.org, 2015, Paragraph 1, 2 June 2015.
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/fifties/essays/catcher-rye-voice-alienation

Park. E, Myung. C, Han Lin. Chung, Allen. Q, Pappas. N and Moon. S , ’Catcher-Rye - What's Bothering Holden?’ 2015. 4 June 2015, Paragraphs 3,4 and 5
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Author Unknown, ‘Holden Caufield as Untrustworthy Narrator in The Catcher in the Rye’, 123helpme, 2000, 7 June 2015, Paragraph 1 and 2

http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=14646