How Is Holden Caulfield Alienated

The novel Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger is about a young teenage boy who gets kicked out of school and he roams the streets of New York because he is afraid to go home to his parents. The main character, Holden, is always being alienated from society and he plays a big part in this because he isolates himself. He isolates himself from society. He has no one to talk to. Also, when he tries to talk people push him away. In the story Holden gets alienated because he isolates himself from society, he has no one to talk to, and when he tries to talk he gets pushed away.
Holden isolates himself from society because he is always depressed. Holden gets depressed about every little thing. When Holden left the fencing equipment in the subway station he got depressed. He went up on top of a hill to watch the football game instead of with everyone else. An example of when this happens is when he says “I was standing way the hell up on top of Thomsen Hill… The reason I was standing way up on Thomsen Hill… was because … I left all the foils and equipment and stuff on the goddamn subway” (Salinger 3). The fencing team alienates him because of this reason. He gets depressed about it and does not want to be near anyone.

Holden has no one to talk to.

He tries to talk to people but the words will not come out. When Holden gets off of the train at Penn Station he goes straight to the phone booth. He thinks about calling all these people but makes up excuses not to call them. An example of when this happens is when he says “The first thing I did when I got off at Penn Station, I went into this phone booth. I felt like giving someone a buzz … I ended up not calling anybody. I came out of the booth, after about twenty minutes or so…” (59). For someone to spend twenty minutes in a phone booth deciding who to call and not call anybody comes to show that Holden has no one to talk to. He isolates himself so he does not have to talk to

anybody.
When Holden tries to talk to people they do not want to be bothered so they push him away. This is another reason why Holden gets alienated and isolates himself. When Holden ask the cab driver a question the cab driver gets annoyed and yells at him. Holden asked “by any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over? … What’re ya tryna do, bud? Kid me?” (60). Holden tries to talk to him but he just gets pushed away. This is an example of Holden getting alienated and isolated.
Holden gets alienated because he isolates himself from society, he has no one to talk to, and when he tries to talk he gets alienated even more. Holden is a very depressed person. He is so depressed he gets physically sick. These three reason are some of the reasons Holden gets this way and ends up in a mental institution. People should watch how they treat people because they never know what is going on in their life.