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How does salinger characterize holden caulfield in chapter 1 of the catcher in the rye
How does salinger characterize holden caulfield in chapter 1 of the catcher in the rye
Character analysis of Holden of the catcher in the rye
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Holden Caulfield Starting at Pencey Prep in “Catcher In The Rye” you go along with the coming of age story and travel through New York and through a brave teenagers troubles. Holden is a seventeen year old teenager who lost his way after the lost of his younger brother, Allie, from leukemia. Psychological concepts are expressed throughout Holden’s memories as well as his tragedies and helps you understand what it would be like if you were in a situation like his. Holden has been to four boarding schools. He failed three and quit one. At Pencey Prep, his last school, Holden had failed four out of five of his subjects (Salinger 6). Holden passed his English class, because he found his old English teacher inspiring. He had kept that feeling with him throughout other all of his English classes, no matter the teacher. Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) is when someone is so against doing something that they get get angry, start arguing, show defiance, and start being irritable. It can also be explained as a hostile and defiant behavior. ODD is when you show these symptoms in …show more content…
Holden may have some or all of these disorders. His trigger was his brother passing away. Psychological concepts are expressed throughout Holden’s memories and helps people who learn about him understand what it would be like if you were in his situation. I think that Holden was never a bad kid. He might not have been able to handle bumps in the road in the way he probably should have, but maybe part of his problem was just his loneliness being away from his family after his brother’s death. After the book, I would suggest that Holden should go to therapy to learn about other ways to cope and understand what has happened. In therapy, they recommend that you keep a journal to express your emotions that you may feel like you can’t any other time. Maybe this book is Holden’s ‘journal’, because this is where we learn his real thoughts and
J.D. Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye, uses the behaviour of protagonist Holden Caulfield to shape his personality in the way he alienates himself from the rest of the world. Holden alienates himself from the society he lives in, his relationships with others and also the relationship he has with himself. Holden struggles to cope with the fact that eventually he will have to grow up and so will everyone around him. Holden see’s the world not being perfect as a huge problem that he alone has to fix because everyone else is too much of a ‘phony’ to do it. The novel explores Holden’s weekend after he got kicked out of his fourth school, Pency Prep, and the struggles he faces with alienating himself.
I wasn’t supposed to come back after Christmas vacation … I was flunking four subjects and not applying myself and all” (Salinger 4). Holden does not yet realize the severity of his actions. He does not comprehend that when he does not apply himself, he does not do well. This could partly be due to the fact that when he gets kicked out of one school, he knows that his family will just pay for him to be allowed into another boarding school.
more mature for his age then he should have been. This is the basis of
Everyone has their own perception on what defines a hero; some may argue that they exhibit characteristics such as honesty or courage, while others may think that heroes have special power. Our society may have changed the values in which we associate heroes with, but one thing seems to have never changed: the main character of the book turns out as the hero. In my analyst, Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye, is put on trial as we see through our own eyes how Caulfield can not be considered a hero in modern society.
In the novel The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger,Holden the main character tries to take on adult and mature situations but finds himself in reality not getting very far. Holden Caulfield who goes to Pencey has failed four out of five classes and gets the notice that he is being expelled from the school. He leaves the school and goes out and tries to adventure into the real world. Holden takes on many challenges and obstacles throughout the book . Although Holden wants to be independent many people perceive Holden in numerous different ways to his actions and feelings. Faith and Stradlater both perceive Holden as irritating, when in reality he tries to distract himself from being depressed. For example when Holden was in the phone
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
Holden Caulfield, portrayed in the J.D. Salinger novel Catcher in the Rye as an adolescent struggling to find his own identity, possesses many characteristics that easily link him to the typical teenager living today. The fact that the book was written many years ago clearly exemplifies the timeless nature of this work. Holden's actions are those that any teenager can clearly relate with. The desire for independence, the sexually related encounters, and the questioning of ones religion are issues that almost all teens have had or will have to deal with in their adolescent years. The novel and its main character's experiences can easily be related to and will forever link Holden with every member of society, because everyone in the world was or will be a teen sometime in their life.
Holden had a tough time fitting in at his schools because he thought of almost everyone as phonies. "`It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques' (pg. 131)." He seems to have a history of expulsion and failure at various schools because of his lack of ability to cope with others. Ordinary problems of his had turned into major conflicts with other students. "I hate fist fights. I don't mind getting hit so much - although I'm not crazy about it, naturally - but what scares me most in a fist fight is the guy's face. I can't stand looking at the other guy's face, is my trouble. It wouldn't be so bad if you could both be blindfolded or something. It's a funny kind of yellowness, when you come to think of it, but it's yellowness, all right. I'm not kidding myself. (pg. 90)" Holden got into a fight with his roommate at school because he was going out with his ex-girlfriend. He's afraid that the guy is taking her from him, even though he's not with her anymore. These are problems that are normal, but Holden has trouble dealing with them.
...ality in the narrative is having to deal with alienation and how he deals with it, with the world. One of his other psychological features is having depression, which elucidate to Sigmund Freud. Holden’s last trait has to do with having immature relationships with women and focuses on both the author and Holden. Holden Caulfield could also be known as a wallflower. He is shy, always excluded to the world, and is always focusing in his own mind, which somewhat makes him have a normal trait. But that doesn’t cover his mental disorders.
Holden is not just abnormal, he has problems that other teenagers, including the students at Pencey, experience going through adolescence. An example of this is Holden's jealousy towards Stradlater when he finds out he is going on a date with Jane Gallagher, “Boy,was I getting nervous” (42). Every teenager has bouts of jealously especially about the opposite sex, and Holden is no different. Holden's rebellious nature, to an extent, is typical for a teenage boy. His rebellious nature of smoking when it is not allowed, “You weren't allowed to smoke in the dorm...I went right on smoking like a madman.” (41-42). Holden is also anxious about change, which again to an extent is normal, “Do you happen to know where they go, the ducks...”(60), and he has the right to be; change,especially during adolescence, is a terrifying but exciting ride into the unknown, and similar to other adolescents Holden is afraid but intrigued about the unknown.
In the article “Anxiety Disorders” written by D’Arcy Lyness it states that “Anxiety can be described as a sense of uneasiness, nervousness, worry, fear, or dread of what’s about to happen.” This can easily be seen in Holden by his sense of awareness for those around him and those he cares about, although he doesn’t always have anxiety when it can be applied, like to school work. For example Holden was extremely worried about his sister phoebe when she was riding around on the carousel, because he thought that she might fall off. “I was sort of afraid she’d fall off the damn horse, but I didn’t say anything or do anything” (Salinger 211). It shows that Holden is afraid for his sister and people that he cares about, but in normal cases because she was standing up on a moving machine, which is a typical thing to be worried about when dealing with younger people. Also Holden can be seen having slight anxiety by leaving school early to go and be in NYC for a couple days on his own, he was too afraid to face his own parents because he knew they would be angry with him, so instead he decided to just take some time for himself and attempt to sort things out. Some might say that Holden is suffering from a more serious disorder, like bi-polar disorder because of his “impulsive behavior” (Bipolar Disorder) however Holden’s impulsive behavior is just a reaction to
He definitely suffers from more than five of the symptoms. Holden has said in the book that he hates saying goodbye to people and hates when people leave, which is an example of the first symptoms on the list. Holden is obsessed with Jane Gallagher yet he gets mad at her when she goes out on a date with Stradlater, Holden’s roommate, which is an example of the second symptoms on the list. As a seventeen year old kid, he smokes lots of cigarettes and drinks lots of alcohol, in essence making him a substance abuser, which is the fourth example on the symptoms list. Holden ponders the thought of suicide multiple times throughout the book, like when he was in Central Park and thought about what would happen if he were to die or when he claims that he will volunteer to sit on the top of the atomic bomb if there is another war. These are some examples that fit the criteria of the fifth symptom on the symptoms list. Holden is depressed the entire book and towards the end of the book his depression takes a physical toll on his body as he is nauseous, dizzy, has a headache and eventually passes out. This is an example of the sixth symptom on the symptoms list. Holden is very prone to violence that is overly intense. Some examples of his intensely violent outbreaks in the book are when he breaks all the garage windows the night he learned that his brother, Allie, had died or when Holden gets in a fight with Stradlater when he
Holden's idealism is first brought forth when he describes his life at Pency Prep. It is full of phonies, morons and bastards. His roommate, Stradlater, " was at least a pretty friendly guy, It was partly a phony kind of friendly..." (26) and his other roommate, Ackley is "a very nosy bastard" (33). Holden can't stand to be around either one of them for a very long time. Later, he gets into a fight with Stradlater over his date with Jane. Holden is upset because he thinks that Stradlater "gave her the time" and that he doesn't care about her; 'the reason he didn't care was because he was a goddam stupid moron. All morons hate it when you call them a moron' (44). Holden not only sees his roommates as phonies and bastards, but he also sees his headmaster at Pency Prep as a "phony slob" (3). This type of person is exactly what Holden doesn't want to be. He strives to be a mature adult; caring, compassionate, and sensitive.
... what has been psychologically observed, the patient evidently has shown trademark signs of bipolar disorder and multiple personality swings; Holden is unknowingly infatuated with finding the fault in others and blaming the world for his problems and mistakes, ultimately, putting him in a severely depressive state. Holden needs to continue with his institutional life and will need to be further evaluated. Once Holden realizes what he wants, that not everybody is out to get him, and that everything happens in life for a reason, the better off he will be. Psycho-analysis most people find invasive and frightens most people, but is necessary as seen with close-watch patient Holden Caulfield. Whether Holden will regain mental health stability or continue with psychological disturbance and angst that will inevitably lead to emotional destruction is to be further observed.
This in the story is ironic, Holden states, “’That sonuvabitch Hartzell thinks you’re a hot-shot in English, and he knows you’re my roommate” (Salinger 28). Teacher’s think that Holden is good in school, but his mental issues affect him academically and in addition to his inability to deal with life. Salinger begins his novel with Holden explicitly stating, “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like.” (Salinger 1). Seeing Holden through a psychoanalytical point, we can assume that his lousy childhood can be the cause of his feelings of being lost, repression, and his unstable emotions of depression and isolation.