“I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy” (Salinger 1). The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger in 1951, focuses on the narrative of a troubled teen, named Holden Caulfield, who recounts his experience of getting kicked out of his school around Christmas time, which leads to his decision to leave for New York, where he goes on a downward spiral. This novel hints at Holden Caulfield’s mental health issues, which could be the effect of borderline personality disorder, or BPD, “a serious mental disorder marked by a pattern of ongoing instability in moods, behavior, self-image, and functioning” (NIMH). Throughout the …show more content…
In the novel, Holden plans a date with a girl, named Sally, who he feels indifferent towards. Though after going on the date with her, Holden experiences an intense infatuation for her and invites her to live out his fantasy of escaping to Vermont and living in a cabin in the woods. Once Sally rejects his idea by questioning the logic of it, Holden goes on a tirade and tells Sally that she “gives [him] a royal pain in the ass” (Salinger 148). Sally starts to cry and leaves Holden alone, giving him time to reflect on their conversation during which he says “I don’t even know why I started all that stuff with her . . . The terrible part, though, is that I meant it when I asked her” (Salinger 149). His relationship with Sally is just one example of how unstable his relationships are. The symptom is apparent in Holden and Sally’s interactions as Holden first experiences intense infatuation for Sally, and only moments later, he thinks the complete opposite of her. Instability is also prevalent in Holden’s relationship with his brother, Allie. He idealizes his dead brother, often putting Allie on a pedestal. In a confrontation with Phoebe, Holden says “Just because somebody’s dead, you don’t just stop …show more content…
This symptom of BPD is depicted as having “transient, stress-related paranoia ideation or severe dissociative symptoms” (DSM). One example of this behavior is when Holden, after leaving Mr. Antolini’s, is walking down Fifth Avenue and starts having delusions that he will not make it past the street alive. The scene is explained by Holden when he says “every time I came to the end of the block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I’d never get to the other side of the street” (Salinger 217). Holden is incredibly stressed in this part of the novel, to the point where he starts experiencing delusions of persecution. During the scene, Holden calls upon his brother Allie to protect him, pleading “‘Allie don’t let me disappear. Allie, don’t let me disappear. Allie don’t let me disappear. Please, Allie” (Salinger 218). He is constantly paranoid that he is going to die, but it is distinctively intensified during this scene. Stress-related paranoia in BPD is an adverse symptom as the individual can lose contact with reality and let their delusions fully consume them. With the symptom of paranoia, the person often has delusions of persecution, which is exactly what Holden experiences throughout the
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.
Untitled “BPD has a higher incidence of occurrence than schizophrenia or bipolar disorder and is present in approximately 2% of the general public” (Johnston).Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD, is an emotional disorder that creates unstable behavior and stress in an individual. Holden Caulfield, J.D. Salinger’s, 1948 novel, The Catcher in the Rye, has been praised by many readers. Psychoanalysis is insightfully looking at a character's actions and behavior to better understand them psychologically. By psychoanalyzing Holden Caulfield’s behavior and thoughts, it becomes evident that he has Borderline Personality Disorder, caused by his childhood trauma and neglect, and portrayed through symptoms that damage his relationships and himself. Holden’s Borderline Personality Disorder is caused by trauma and neglect during his childhood, and separation from family, all mostly circulating around the death of his younger brother, Allie (“Mayo Clinic”).
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
In conclusion, it is quite safe to say that Holden indeed has delusional disorder. Just by going through his daily schedule, Holden Caulfield discreetly tells the readers that he has this particular mental disability. All throughout J.D. Salinger’s novel, the thoughts and beliefs that Holden holds dear, little snippets of his past life, and his current personality along with his relationship with the people around him and the feelings that he goes through indicate that he obviously has delusional disorder. Due to the many similarities between The Catcher in the Rye’s Holden Caulfield and the many things known about delusional disorder, one can clearly link Holden to being a victim to this mental illness.
In J. D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield exhibits many symptoms that can be directly linked to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, as well as other forms of grievance. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental illness which generally implicates exposure to trauma from single events that oftentimes involve death. It is frequently divided into three main categories: Reliving the Past, Detachment and Agitation. When analyzing the novel itself, it can be viewed as one large flashback in which Holden is constantly reflecting on past occurrences: “I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy” (Salinger, 1). It is a mental illness that can sometimes occur in teenagers as a response to a sudden traumatic experience or abandonment.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental health condition that makes a person act unusual because of a significant, terrifying event that happened in their past, leaving them mentally scarred. In the novel, Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield suffers from a form of PTSD because his little brother died when he was younger. This event sends Holden through a psychological journey of alienation and isolation shown through six steps. War veterans are most commonly affected by PTSD because of the gruesome and horrendous things they witness on the battlefield. These tremendous horrors are incomparable to any experience a civilian might describe as terrifying. Much like war veterans, Holden Caulfield suffers from the many effects of Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder shown through his behavior of alienation and does not properly handle the situation.
Holden doesn’t like the complexity of life and relationships. This is why he distances himself from his family and friends. After Holden is expelled from his school, he tries to stay away from his parents for fear of their reaction, even though learning of his expulsion is inevitable. He visits his sister Phoebe in their home multiple times throughout the novel because due to her young age, his sister and his relationship is simple. "For instance, within Holden, the desire to reject others conflicts with the desire to be accepted by others: he doesn't want to lend Stradlater his coat, but his overt actions belie this covert, warring want: he despises Ackley, but he invites him to see a movie; he hates movies, believing them to foster phoniness in society” (Mitchell). Holden struggles to “catch” others because he believes he is not accepted by others.
The Catcher in the Rye, a novel by J.D. Salinger, follows the adolescent misadventures of Holden Caulfield, a Caucasian, upper-class male who struggles with feelings of isolation in New York in the 1950s. Although Caulfield seems like he does not have disadvantages on the surface, he suffers greatly inside. Partnered with the grief of his young brother’s death, Holden struggles with the pain of growing up and of a sexual awakening he does not understand. Holden Caulfield’s feelings of alienation and loneliness stem from his repressed homosexual feelings, in a time where having homosexual tendencies was seen as mentally ill behavior.
"After a traumatic experience, it's normal to feel frightened, sad, anxious, and disconnected. But if the distress doesn't fade and you feel stuck with a constant sense of danger and painful memories, you may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.” (Mayo Clinic). Post Dramatic stress is a set of physiological symptoms that follow a traumatic event that has occurred in an individuals life, and is having a great influence on their neurological state in present day. In some cases, PTSD is developed shortly after the event has occurred, but in others, symptoms may not begin to appear until months or years later. In The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, the protagonist Holden Caulfield has a list of peculiar behavioural tendencies
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
Holden wants to be with Sally only when he is not thinking straight. After his long rant about school, he asks her to move to “these cabin camps… in Vermont” with him (132). Holden is not being level headed, which can be observed by Sally telling him to “stop screaming at (her)” multiple times (132). Later, after Holden calmed down, he realized he only “meant it when he asked her,” and “wouldn’t have taken her even if she’d wanted to” (134). When Holden is in a bad state of mind and is “too drunk… to give Jane a buzz,” he decides to give, “old Sally Hayes a buzz” (150). Holden feels attached to her and always seems to need her in these bad moments, but afterwards, he “wished to God (he) hadn’t even phoned her” (151). In moments of foolishness for Holden, he always falls back on Sally, and only later when he reflects on it, does he regret the decisions he made. Sally in Catcher in the Rye, is involved with many of Holden’s regrets, making her one of the necessary characters throughout Holden’s
This is the first psychiatric hospital admission for the patient, a 17 year-old male. The subject freely admitted himself to care at 13:00 hours on November 28, 1958. Mr. Holden Caulfield arrived at the hospital in the company of his parents--whose consent was necessary given Holden's legal status as a minor--and his younger sister Phoebe. His induction took place without any incident.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about one in four American adults suffer from a mental disorder. This means that 57.7 out of 217.8 million people over the age of 18 are ill; never mind that mental illnesses are the leading cause of disability in Canada and the United States. Holden Caulfield, the controversial main character of J.D Salinger’s novel Catcher in the Rye, spends much of the book wandering through the streets of New York City. Kicked out of boarding school for the umpteenth time, he does many odd things: he calls a prostitute, tries to befriend a taxi driver, drinks with middle aged women, and sneaks into his own house in the middle of the night. While many of these things seem outré, some may even go as far as to say that he is mentally disturbed. From a psychiatric standpoint, main character Holden Caulfield exhibits the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder (manic depression), and psychosis throughout the infamous novel Catcher in the Rye.
Holden's nervous impulse to protect women seems to have sprung up in his psyche from a very young age. After his brother, Allie, started to experience more severe symptoms of leukemia, Holden notes that his mother seemed "nervous as hell." His own mother's emotional problems (Lombardi) transfer to Holden on a very deep, psychological level because he feels partially responsible for his brother's fate in the first place. Seeing his mother in such a distraught state makes him feel even guiltier. The unintended consequence of this is that Holden grows up with a constant fear that he is going to hurt any woman that he grows close to. This manifests itself many times during his time in New York, with one of the earliest examples being his meeting with Sunny in the hotel room. Holden protects her innocence, but not for any particularly noble reason. He hangs her dress back up and insists that he just wants to talk, but Holden did not do this in an attempt to be some paragon of righteousness. Holden, on a deep, psychological lev...
(“Borderline Personality Disorder”, n.d.). BPD is mainly caused by genetic and biological factors, but "loss, neglect and bullying may also contribute" ("Borderline Personality Disorder", 2016). The main cause of Holden's disorder would be the death of his brother, Allie. Also, Holden constantly feels neglected and lonely. People who are diagnosed with BPD usually have impulsive and violent behavior, which Holden demonstrates by breaking windows after Allie dies. “... I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it” (Salinger, 1951, p. 39), he has admitted. They also have unstable moods (“Borderline Personality Disorder”, n.d.). The patient will very often go from being in a pleasant, relatively stable mood, to being angry, sad, or lonely. For instance, when Holden talked to two nuns in Grand Central Station about literature, he was in good spirits, but after they left, he suddenly started thinking about how he did not give them enough money, which ended up making him feel “blue as hell”(Salinger, 1951, p. 113). Holden’s relationships are just as unpredictable as his moods. Any friends he makes usually fade away. He has very few real friends in his life and does not do well with keeping in touch. When he does start to form a relationship, such as with Sally, he usually cannot maintain it. At the end of their date,