The Catcher in the Rye: Story of a Troubled Teen

963 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The catcher in the rye psychoanalytical lens

J.D. Salinger's novel, The Catcher In The Rye, attempts to show the reader the life of a regular boy with troubles on his mind. The rich and troubled Holden Caufield is that boy. His parents are quite wealthy and want Holden to be successful in life as well, but they do not nurture Holden with the amount of love that is necessary. Holden feels the absence of love, which causes him to suffer a variety of emotional problems. Holden needs direction in his life because he constantly struggles to find the meaning of life on his own. Schools kick him out because he is not able to focus with all these issues in his life. With all this pressure he faces, Holden escapes from consciousness in what appears to be a psychological defect, but is just a severe lack of control in his life.

“After I got across the road, I felt like I was sort of disappearing. It was that kind of a crazy afternoon. Terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road” (Salinger 5). Holden feels like he is in another world from the beginning of the conversation. Holden always feels away from the world when he encounters conflict from society, school, or parents. His feeling of disappearing is a form of escape for him, and allows Holden to forget about anything he has trouble with at the moment. The illusion is self-imposed, and is a clear sign that he wants to do away with any type of pressure and enter a new world. Holden’s lack of focus and guidance forces him into a trap and the only way out is by dreaming.

One major problem is his constant neglect of guidance. While Mr. Spencer, his history teacher, talks to him in his hous...

... middle of paper ...

... child, but must protect only himself for now.

Holden Caufield is one example out of many troubled teenagers in the world and what they go through in life to make it. Not many people are willing to tell their life story in full detail and reveal all about themselves. It is personal and hard to tell someone. Holden has a hard time because his parents did not show a lot of affection due to their busy lives and their strive for perfection, which in turn does not allow Holden to listen carefully to their advice. He is also a spoiled child, which further deepens the problem. He does not see the real world and the real struggles in life to make him think twice. Instead he rides on other’s money and has his eyes blinded by it. Problems will always face him, but now he will tackle them with a matured mind.

Show More
Related

  • What Does Holden's Hat Symbolize

    1104 Words  | 3 Pages

    Holden Caulfield, the teenage protagonist of Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger, struggles with having to enter the adult world. Holden leaves school early and stays in New York by himself until he is ready to return home. Holden wants to be individual, yet he also wants to fit in and not grow up. The author uses symbolism to represent Holden’s internal struggle.

    Read More

  • The Catcher in the Rye: Stuck In Adolescence

    692 Words  | 2 Pages

    The novel The Catcher in the Rye follows Holden Caulfield for a weekend. The story begins in Agerstown, PA at Pencey Prep school with Holden standing on top of the Thomson Hill on his way to Mr. Spencer’s, his history teacher, to say good bye because Holden was expelled for not following rules. On his way to Spencer’s, Holden “felt like [he] was sort of disappearing”. (Salinger 5) The sense of symbolism with the word “disappearing” is that he feels alone and almost invisible. When Mr. Spencer starts to read Holden’s failed paper, Holden starts to daydream about “wondering where ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over” (13) in Central Park in New York. The symbolic significance in this comment is that Holden is frozen in adolescence.

    Read More

  • The Mental Health of Holden Caulfield

    725 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel, Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield is an example of a prosaic rich adolescent boy,with a pedestrian set of problems, but a psychoanalysis reveals that Holden has a plethora of atypical internal conflicts. Internal conflicts that other students at Pencey, such as Stradlater and Ackley, would not normally experience.

    Read More

  • Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye

    640 Words  | 2 Pages

    Holden Caulfield can be analyzed through his thoughts, actions and circumstances which surround his everyday life. Holden acts like a careless teenager. Holden has been to several prep-schools, all of which he got kicked out of for failing classes. After being kicked out of the latest, Pency Prep, he went off to New York on his own. Holden seems to have a motivation problem which apparently affects his reasoning. The basis of his reasoning comes from his thoughts. Holden thinks the world is full of a bunch of phonies. All his toughs about people he meets are negative. The only good thoughts he has are about his sister Phoebe and his dead brother Alley. Holden, perhaps, wishes that everyone, including himself, should be like his brother and sister. That is to be intelligent, real and loving. Holden’s problem is with his heart. It was broken when his brother died. Now Holden goes around the world as his fake self, wearing his mask. Holden is looking for love, peace and understanding. He is scared to love because he is afraid he might lose it like he did with his brother. That is the reason for Holden's love of the museum, he feels safe because it never changes it always stays the same. Holden is troubled with the pain of death, it effects every aspect of his life causing him to not care about the future, himself or anyone, except Phoebe and Alley.

    Read More

  • Holden's Influenced

    783 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Catcher in the Rye Holden Gets Influenced Everyone gets influenced by someone, even heroes do. The Catcher in the Rye, a novel written by J. D. Salinger, talks about Holden Caulfield, a 16 year old boy that is trying to live through his problems. Holden tries to learn from his experiences as well as from the ones of others. He goes through many hard times, but he always takes them as a chance to imagine how it could have ended if he had done something about them or what cold had happened if he was not so “yellow”.

    Read More

  • The Catcher In The Rye

    779 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1950 J.D. Salenger captures one of society’s tragedies, the breakdown of a teenager, when he wrote The Catcher In The Rye. Holden Caulfield, a fickle “man” is not even a man at all. His unnecessary urge to lie to avoid confrontation defeats manhood. Holden has not matured and is unable to deal with the responsibility of living on his owe. He childishly uses a hunter’s hat to disguise him self from others. The truth of his life is sad and soon leads to his being institutionalized. He tries to escape the truth with his criticisms. Knowing he will never meet his parents’ expectations, his only true friend is his eight-year-old sister Phoebe, to whom Holden tells that he really wants to be ‘the catcher in the rye”. Holden admits his only truth and shows that Phoebe is his only friend. Another form of escape for Holden is his acting, which he uses to excuse the past. Holden has tried to lie, hide, and blame his way through life; when he finds that it is not the answer he collapses.

    Read More

  • To Kill A Mockingbird Courage Analysis

    826 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to Atticus Finch, courage can be shown as physical bravery and strength. However courage can also be fighting for what’s right, even if you’re risking everything; or in other words, moral courage. This is shown when Atticus is discussing the topic of the Tom Robinson case at home with Scout, and she asks if he is going to win. Atticus replies with no and says “Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us to try to win. (P. 87). This reveals that the case is heavily based on racism. No matter how innocent Tom may seem he will lose, simply because he is black. The term “licked”, basically means beaten; but even though Tom has been “licked”, Atticus still believe he deserves justice and will not give up. Atticus proves to us that he has moral courage, by giving Tom a fair chance. He understands that defending Tom will lead to him being insulted, and the white people of Maycomb would have disdain towards him. He know...

    Read More

  • An Analysis on Benjamin Franklin

    1624 Words  | 4 Pages

    Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston. His father, Josiah Franklin, who was a tallow chandler, had seventeen children; Benjamin was the fifteenth child and the tenth son. His mother, Abiah Folger, was his father’s second wife. After he went to grammar school from age eight to ten, Benjamin started working at his father’s business. He didn’t like the work very much, however, and so he began to work for a cutler. When he was just thirteen, he became an apprentice to his brother James, who had just returned from England with a new printing press. Benjamin learned the printing trade, but in his spare time he tried to improve his education. In 1721 his brother James Franklin started the New England Courant, and Benjamin, who was fifteen at the time, kept busy in delivering the newspaper during the day and writing articles for it at night. These articles, published anonymously, were widely noticed and even acclaimed for their observations of the current events. Because of its liberal bias, the New England Courant frequently displeased the local colonial authorities. In 1722, because of one of these articles that was considered particularly offensive to the authorities, James Franklin was imprisoned for a month and forbidden to publish his paper, and for a while it appeared under Benjamin’s name.

    Read More

  • Growing Up in The Catcher in the Rye

    764 Words  | 2 Pages

    Growing up poses challenges to most people at some point in their lives. 16-year-old Holden Caufield is no exception. He is an apathetic teenager who’s flunked out of many schools. Underneath the cynical exterior, though, Holden is troubled. He has different methods for escaping his problems, but in the end they just cause him more problems.

    Read More

  • Wife Of Bath Comparison Essay

    706 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... The Miller portrays Alison as a "wild and young" (205) woman throughout the entire tale, making it clear that she does not respect the relationship with her husband at all. It can also suggest that she is not an angel or the “good wife” that she likes to pretend to be. It is obvious that Alison likes to use her beauty and body in ways to make it easier to obtain the things that she desire just like The Wife of Bath indirectly hints in her tale.

    Read More

  • Holden's Lonliness Catcher In the Rye

    600 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many young people often find themselves struggling to find their own identity and place in society. This search for self worth often leaves these young people feeling lonely and isolated because they are unsure of themselves. Holden Caulfield, J.D. Salinger's main character in the book The Catcher In the Rye, is young man on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. One contributor to this breakdown, is the loneliness that Holden experiences. His loneliness is apparent through many ways including: his lack of friends, his longing for his dead brother, and the way he attempts to gain acceptance from others.

    Read More

  • Christianity and Popular Culture

    2621 Words  | 6 Pages

    2.Richard J. Mouw, He Shines in All That's Fair: Culture and Common Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 9.

    Read More

  • Genocide in Darfur

    1397 Words  | 3 Pages

    Levy, Janey. Genocide in Darfur. New York, N.Y. 10010: The Rosen Publishing Book, Inc., 2009. Print.

    Read More

  • An Author’s Massive Influence

    843 Words  | 2 Pages

    For a long time, writers have had a large influence on people’s opinions. In fact, 18th century writers and philosopher like John Locke were able to spread their ideas through their books on economics and politics. Still to this day, writers can influence a reader to agree or disagree with an idea by presenting the information in different styles. In the news article, “Locke and Load: The Fatal Error of the ‘Stand Your Ground’ Philosophy” by Firmin Debrabander, the author argues that weapons are not being used safely and when necessary. Debrabander uses the information in a style that influences the audience to be against Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, where Floridians can shoot to kill if they feel threatened. Ultimately, the article is persuasive because the author uses strong supporting current events, manipulates the reader, and disproves parts of the opposition.

    Read More

  • A Transient Citizen

    1527 Words  | 4 Pages

    This is a clause from an oath I took on February 6, 2002—an ordinary day of no significance to most people, a climatic point in my life—it was the day I became a U.S. citizen. I did not attend the formal ceremony in the Los Angeles Convention Center, yet for me it did not matter; I was still just as excited, for this was the day I became a true American. There were many people from different cultures in the noisy office where I received my certificate, yet we were all filled with the same excitement—the potential of the American Dream and to be part of the greatest nation.

    Read More

More about The Catcher in the Rye: Story of a Troubled Teen

Open Document