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Character analysis of Holden of the catcher in the rye
Holden catcher in the rye characterisation
Holden caulfield character study
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Holden Caulfield’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
In The Catcher in the Rye, the main character Holden Caulfield deals with a handful of experiences and emotions that are probable symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Some of these symptoms that Holden exhibits throughout the book include but are not limited to flashbacks, being easily startled, feelings of depression, and guilt (“PTSD” 2). These symptoms have negatively impacted nearly his entire teenage life. This has made him differ from the rest of the “normal” people in the world. Throughout the book, we tend to realize that Holden’s personality traits may alter due to the way PTSD is having an effect on him. With this being said, events that occur in The Catcher in the Rye portray the actual struggle Holden is battling with this disease.
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To begin, Holden is of three children.
Unfortunately, his younger brother, Allie, passing away took a huge toll on his life. One night after being physically abused by Maurice the elevator operator Holden says “What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud, to Allie. I do that sometimes when I get very depressed” (Salinger 98). Clearly, he causes his own self-anxiety sometimes leading to sleep deprivation. Flashing back to unnecessary memories such as simply not allowing Allie to go shoot his BB gun with him, Holden puts himself through more pain than he already was going through. In the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder article, it explains, “Some people get PTSD after a friend or family experiences harm.” Therefore, the death of Allie is most likely one of the main reasons for Holden’s not so ordinary
self. Further along in the book, Holden leaves himself with no money asking for a place to stay by Mr. Antolini, his former teacher. Mr. Antolini, out of the kindness of his heart welcomed him to stay with him. Waking up on the couch at an unknown time, Holden finds himself getting “petted” on the head by Mr. Antolini. In the text, Holden says, “Boy, I’ll bet I jumped about a thousand feet,” as his reaction to his actions (Salinger 192). Though this may seem a bit odd, Holden had already previously inferred that he seemed to be a bit “oiled up” or tipsy. This quote is an example of Holden’s symptoms of PTSD. Typically, an individual would not have this type of hyperarousal symptom. Another example of Holden’s struggle, is when he takes his trip to New York City after his expelling at Pencey College. In order to hide this from his parents, he decides to stay in a hotel for a few nights in the city. He begins to exemplify, “New York’s terrible when somebody laughs on the street at night. You can hear it for miles. It makes you feel so lonesome and depressed” (Salinger 81). Here, Holden’s feeling of depression may be a sign of an avoidance symptom (“PTSD” 2). Realizing he will be staying by himself in the city for a few days, he tries to occupy himself by doing normal day to day things but it does not help. Every day, Holden ends going to bed feeling the same way he has the night before. This overwhelming feeling of alienation from the world could be a possible reason for Holden’s overthinking method of certain things. As Holden is going to get breakfast at a sandwich shop, he meets two nuns. Being the person he is, he easily noticed that the one nun was carrying a straw basket. He had thought that that she was collecting funds for a charity cause but that was not the case. After offering up most of the money he had left which was not quite a lot, he still felt bad. Holden says “I couldn’t stop thinking about those two nuns,” because he wishes he could have given them more money (Salinger 113). Guilt is a sign of PTSD. It is not that the nuns needed the money, but he still felt that they did because they are not as fortunate as him. In the end, Holden is narrating this story while in a rest home somewhere in California going under treatments. It is not known why he is getting these treatments, but this could also be due to his ongoing struggle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This disorder will forever give Holden anxiousness and negativity. Taking control of most of his teenage years, Holden remains feeling this uneasiness at all times. Unless Holden gets help, he will never be happy with his life.
As Eugene McNamara stated in his essay “Holden Caulfield as Novelist”, Holden, of J.D. Salinger’s novel Catcher in the Rye, had met with long strand of betrayals since he left Pencey Prep. These disappointments led him through the adult world with increasing feelings of depression and self-doubt, leading, finally to his mental breakdown.
Holden also has a negative perspective of life that makes things seem worse than they really are. In addition to Holden’s problems he is unable to accept the death of his brother at a young age. Holden’s immaturity, negative mentality, and inability to face reality hold him back from moving into adulthood. Holden’s immaturity causes him many problems throughout the story. Although he is physically mature, he acts more like a child.
The catcher in the rye by J.D. Salinger is about a boy named Holden Caulfield and his struggles in one part of his life. Holden seem very normal to people around him and those he interacts with. However, Holden is showing many sighs of depression. A couple of those signs that are shown are: trouble sleeping, drinking, smoking, not eating right, and he talk about committing suicide a couple times during the book. On top of that Holden feel alienated plus the death of Holden’s brother Allie left Holden thinking he and no where to go in life.
Holden experiences agitation and irritability towards dealing with people he perceives at phonies. HIs agitation comes with the experiences he has had with people such as Ackley, Stradlater, his parents, and others he can interpret as fake or that have done things in the past to irritate him. His irritation among people is very common and repetitive throughout the book where it could be identified as a symptom of PTSD. For example, a scene Holden demonstrates agitation is when he talks to Phoebe about what his parents might do to him since he had gotten kicked out of yet another school; Pencey. “No, he won’t. The worst he’ll do, he’ll give me hell again, and then he’ll send me to military school.” (Salinger 166). Holden’s agitation comes from
Imagine if your best friend or someone close to you suddenly dies of a fatal disease. The death of this person would physically and mentally inflict trauma. All though the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is a grieving seventeen year old because he endures a traumatic experience at the age of 13. His 11 year old brother, Allie, dies of leukemia, and this affects Holden throughout the novel. It causes him to yearn for his innocence and childhood back because he wants to return to the stage in his life when there are no worries. He realizes that it is not realistic to become a child again, and he begins to accept the fact that he must grow up and set an example for his sister, Phoebe. Growing up with the loss of a close brother, Holden wants to be a protector of all innocence, and later in the novel, he begins to notice he must find a solution to his traumatic experiences in order to become successful in his lifetime.
Holden feels as if he is stuck in his 13 year old self. Although he is aging he isn’t necessarily maturing the way his classmates and other people are around him. This is due to the fact that he never received closure when Allie died. When he starts picturing his own funeral because he might get pneumonia and die, he remembers D.B. telling him about his brother's funeral. He stated, “I wasn’t there. I was still in the hospital. I had to go to the hospital and all after I hurt my hand” (Salinger 171). Since he never attended the funeral he never got to say his final goodbyes to the one person he truly loved. Holden feels as if he can’t connect with anyone else in the world like he did with Allie. If he did then he would most likely push them away, so he wouldn’t have to experience the trauma of loss again, because it greatly impacted his life the first time. The trauma Holden experienced when he was younger resulted in him not being able to form stronger relationships with people which made him more depressed and
Events in Holden's life lead him to become depressed. Holden's depression centers on Allie. The manner that Holden sees himself and how he sees others leads him to be expelled from school. The speaker expresses, "One thing about packing depressed me a little," (51). Holden expresses these feelings when he packs his bags after being notified that he is expelled. Holden leaves school and heads for New York City, where he finds himself to be more lonely and depressed than ever. He is all alone and he laments, " What I really felt like doing was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out of the window," (104). Holden says this while he is all alone in his motel room. He is too ashamed of himself to return home, he knows that his mother will be upset and his father will be angry with him. He also adds that " I wasn’t feeling sleepy or anything, but I was feeling sort of lousy. Depressed and all, I almost wished I was dead," (90). Holden states this during one of the first nights that he is staying in New York. Holden expresses many thoughts of depression.
In the beginning of the book the reader immediately starts to see these symptoms. Before Holden left Pencey he said “ what I was really hanging around for, I was trying… to feel some kind of good-bye. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that”(Salinger 7). One of the symptoms of PTSD is living in fear everyday and this is how Holden felt. In the quote he says that he hates not feeling some kind of good-bye but what he is really trying to say is that he fears he will not feel it. Holden is trying to change his fear into other feelings, like hate. Another symptom of PTSD that Holden experiences is depression. Many times during the novel Holden says “It makes me so depressed I go crazy”(19). During the story Holden often talks about things that make him depressed and this quote is just one of the multiple examples of the suffering he goes through because of his depression.Throughout Holden's journey there are so many questions constantly going through his mind. A couple of these questions were should he make phone calls to his old friends and if he should go home to his family. “Boy did I feel rotten. I felt so damn lonesome”(62-63). He has an opportunity to cure his loneliness by calling his old friends but he never follows through. “Then I went over and laid down on Ely’s bed…. Boy did I feel rotten. I felt so damn lonesome”(62-63). This quote shows that even when Holden isn’t alone he still suffers from overwhelming loneliness, which is also a symptom of PTSD. In the novel Holden experienced many of the symptoms of PTSD and this story accurately showed the difficulties that PTSD sufferers experience when trying to live their daily
He's so used to the idea of being alone that it becomes what he wants. Holden is so petrified of losing the people he is closest to, so he decides to not be close with anyone. He is afraid of the same repercussions from Allie. He would rather keep to himself than risk contentment, rationality, and stability. He for so many days after his removal from Pencey would by himself go to bars alone and try to drink away his pain. “I guess it was because I was feeling so damn depressed and lonesome” (Salinger 198). It’s during this time that Holden is falling down a dark, bottomless pit of depression and loneliness. It eventually almost became the death of him when he had isolated himself so much. He became sick, depressed, and full of anxiety. His decision to distance himself weakened him beyond his belief. “I still had that headache. It was even worse. And I think I was more depressed than I ever was in my whole life” (Salinger 252). His depression was starting to get the best of him and all he needed was to be comforted by someone other than
In the book, “The Catcher in The Rye” by J.D. Salinger, the main character is very strange in numerous ways. His name is Holden Caulfield and boy has he got something wrong with him. He rambles on and on about nonsense for the first 20-something chapters of the book. He only likes 3-4 people in the book. He smokes and drinks heavily at the ripe age of seventeen. He has been expelled out of numerous prep schools, and feels abandoned and not wanted. He has some sort of mental illness and I think I know what it is. I believe that Holden Caulfield has a mental illness known as Borderline Personality Disorder, also known as BPD. The reasoning for my thinking is that Holden’s actions match up with the symptoms of this illness and the isolation he
As Holden Caulfield interacts with others and meets new challenges, he reveals his innermost feelings throughout The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. Some may interpret his behaviors as teenage angst, but others find that Holden reveals traits of a mental disorder. Specifically, Holden suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder. Borderline Personality Disorder “is a serious mental illness marked by unstable moods, behavior, and relationships” (NIMH). He often experiences uncontrollable rage that results in altercations and behaves on impulse when handling money. He also shows signs of addiction when consuming alcohol. Additionally, Holden has trouble maintaining positive relationships with
However, his feelings suggest that the true reason for his depression is his loss of Innocence. When he was 13 years old, he lost his little brother Allie to leukemia. Allie meant a lot to Holden. He even becomes a symbol in the book. Allie is the one who keeps Holden from falling of the cliff, he’s the reason that he hasn’t lost his innocence yet. “Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down, and nobody'd ever see me again. Boy, did it scare me. You can't imagine. I started sweating like a bastard—my whole shirt and underwear and everything. Then I started doing something else. Every time I'd get to the end of a block I'd make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I'd say to him, "Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Please, Allie." And then when I'd reach the other side of the street without disappearing, I'd thank him.” (Sallinger) In this part, Allie plays the role as the Catcher in the Rye and keeps Holden from falling of the cliff. This is why i believe that Holden wants to become a “ Catcher in the Rye”. He wants to help people like Allie has helped him. He feels that it's what he’d meant to do with his
I believe that Holden Caulfield is mentally disturbed and shows many signs of it throughout the novel. Problems in Holden’s life that have led him to this rest home are the death of his brother Allie, his multiple failures throughout his academic career, and his distress about moving on in life. Holden deals with these problems by drinking and smoking throughout the novel. He also shows depression throughout the novel by being kicked out of multiple schools and being over-critical of people when he describes them. I feel that he is very disturbed and had not been able to deal with his problems before. Unfortunately his feelings such as the loss of Allie ha...
Holden Caulfield suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder throughout the course of the novel. In fact, the root of all his problems come from Allie’s passing; he died from leukemia. Holden used to be extremely close with him and his imminent death changed his entire life and psyche. Holden seems to relive the event of his beloved little brother Allie’s death over and over. “What is clear, however, is that many of the symptoms Holden displays in the course of the novel mirror the classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. The death of his younger brother, Allie was a traumatic event in Holden Caulfield’s life and is perhaps at the root of the depression he battles in the novel. The death of a sibling can trigger post-traumati...
The second time was more intense. This time a classmate from his school. “There was this one boy at Elkton Hills,named James Castle, that wouldn't take back something he said about this very conceited boy, Phil Stabile...Finally, what he did instead of taking back what he said, he jumped out the window...and there was old James Castle laying right on the stone steps and all”(188). In this moment Holden is in shock to see his classmate dead. That fits in one of the causes that lead to Post Traumatic Stress. The witnessing of a scary or shocking event. So far Holden hasn't been this descriptive of an event as this event that might have lead to his illness. Holden shows more symptoms as becoming very upset when something causes memories of the event. When “every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I’d never get to the other side of the street …” (217). Showing intense ongoing and fear to be forgotten. Holding tightly to the memory of his brother Allie. Causing him to “talk to my[his] brother Allie. I’d[he] say to him, Allie don't let me[Holden] disappear… And then when I’d[him] reach the other side of the street without disappearing, I’d[he would] thank him”(218). That why Holden keeps saying he is feeling depressed in certain occasions, because he doesn't know he has Post Traumatic