Accepting What’s Not There Have you ever wondered why you feel the way you do after you lose someone? Well that feeling is grief, and the many stages that come with it. Grief is a deep sadness, for the loss of a loved one, especially through death.To over come it takes time and help.Throughout the grieving process, a person moves through different stages until finally getting to acceptance, the final step. There are many different steps that may be involved, getting through a rough time. The steps don’t go in a specific order but they are, anger, depression, bargaining, isolation and denial, and the final step acceptance. In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, Holden experiences grief due to the death of his little brother, Allie. Holden goes …show more content…
The type of depression that Holden faces, is extreme sadness. Sadness is the showing of sorrow, unhappiness. Depression from losing someone, “It is the appropriate response to a great loss. We withdraw from life, left in a fog of intense sadness, wondering, perhaps, if there is any point in going on alone? Why go on at all? Depression after a loss is too often seen as unnatural: a state to be fixed, something to snap out of” (Ross). Sadness in grieving is a common response after losing someone, it may seem like that’s all you feel and what is the point. Holden goes through depression, as many things depress him, or sadden him. When Holden talks to Sunny it depresses him because she is around his age, and she is a prostitute. “I think it was because she was young as hell. She was around my age.” “ Sexy was about the last thing I was feeling. I felt more depressed than anything” (Salinger 123) Holden realises that Sunny is around his age and she is selling herself, and it makes him feel depressed because she is so young. Holden thinks about when Sunny purchased the dress, “I took her dress over to the closet and hung it up for her. It was funny. It made me feel sort of sad when I hung it up. I thought of her going in a store and buying it, and nobody in the store knowing she was a prostitute and all. The salesman probably just thought she was a regular girl when she bought it. It made me feel sad as hell I don’t …show more content…
“This stage is about accepting the reality that our loved one is physically gone and recognizing that this new reality is the permanent reality”(Ross) When you come to acceptance it isn’t that you’re okay with what happened but you finally come to realization that they are gone, and not coming back. I don’t believe that Holden comes to a closure, or acceptance of Allies, death. At the end of the novel when he is at the rest home he doesn’t want to tell how he got sick and didn’t feel like talking about it anymore. “That’s all I'm going to tell about. I could probably tell you what I did after I went home, and how I got sick and all, and what school I'm supposed to go to next fall, after I get out of here, but i don’t feel like it. I really don’t. That stuff doesn’t interest me too much right now” (Salinger 276) Holden is at the rest home and done telling his story over the past three days. He doesn’t want to give any details because he doesn’t feel like talking about it anymore. He is still grieving his little brother because he doesn’t want to talk about anything. “ I thought about all this stuff I just finished telling you about. I didn’t know what the hell to say. If you want to know the truth, I don’t know what I think about it.”(Salinger 277) He doesn’t know what to think about, about Allie’s death and what happened because of his grieving. It shows that Holden isn’t
Proceeding Allie’s death, Holden changes his personality, social life, educational standing and sociological standing. Holden becomes introverted and angered with the world, blaming everyone of being phony. The Catcher in the Rye through the life and actions of Holden Caulfield truly portrays the role a loved one’s death can play in a person’s life.
The book in it’s entirety deals with multiple subjects ranging from depression to dealing with being an adult but an important subject that goes unnoticed is the subject of grief. Holden throughout the book deals with multiple stages of grief. The stages of grief he deals with are anger, denial, and finally acceptance bringing the book to a
In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden, cannot accept that he must move out of childhood and into adulthood. One of Holden’s most important major problems is his lack of maturity. 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.
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.
Nineteen million American adults suffer from a major case of depression (Web MD). That is a staggering one in every fifteen people (2 in our classroom alone). Holden Caulfield is clearly one of those people. Depression is a disease that leads to death but is also preventable. Psychology, stressful events, and prescription drugs are causes of depression. Stressful events brought on Holden’s depression. Holden has been trying to withstand losing a brother, living with careless parents, and not having many friends. The Catcher in the Rye is a book that takes us through the frazzled life of Holden Caulfield, who appears to be just a regular teen. But by hearing his thoughts and through heart-wrenching events in the book, the reader learns that Holden is not the innocent boy that he once appeared. In his book, The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger shows that Holden’s depression is not only affecting him, but also the people around him through Sally, Phoebe, and Sunny.
The experience of being in a state of grief is not limited by age but by experience. The symptoms of a person experiencing bereavement and grief are found throughout the book. These symptoms not only apply to Holden and his situation, but also are accepted as classic symptoms recognized by the Grief Counseling Community. The story is replete with the phrases "I felt so lonesome; I almost wish I was dead; it was so depressing; it was so quiet and lonesome out; feeling sort to lousy; made me sad; I felt miserable; felt like committing suicide; jumping out the window; sitting on an atomic bomb; blue as hell; felt like getting stinking drunk; can't sleep."
People’s shortcomings cause them to look at themselves and the environment around them, Holden does this multiple times throughout the book. “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,” (100). Holden doesn’t delude himself into thinking he’s perfect, which will allow him to better understand himself and his needs, but it also causes him some problems, like depression. Depression is said to ail everyone at least once at some point in their lives, Salinger makes it apparent that Holden is suffering it throughout the novel. “What I really felt like doing, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would have done it, too, if I’d been sure somebody’d cover me up as soon as I landed,” (116-117). Depression and suicide are still present in today’s society, and unfortunately a part or many people’s lives, contributing to the American
Holden Caulfield conveys his melancholy, sarcasm, and seclusion greatly through his dialogue; his vocabulary constantly consists of depression and loneliness. He expresses such agony all throughout the dialogue of the book. An example of this would be when Holden quotes, “When I finally got down off the radiator and went out to the hat-check room, I was crying and all. I don’t know why, but I was. I guess it was because I was feeling so damn depressed and lonesome” (153). In this quote, Holden is expressing his confusion and unhappiness but mostly is just confused to why he is unhappy. He feels a severe amount of misery that devours him, all of which is shown greatly in all of his dialogue. He, at one point in the novel, feels like committing suicide because he cannot handle the pressure. He says that “I stayed in the bathroom for about an hour, taking a bath and all. Then I got back in bed. It took me quite a while to get to sleep- I...
Although Catcher in the Rye was written over 60 years ago, Holden Caulfield is still a character that many teens can relate to because of his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms, his need to rebel and his loneliness. Because of the death of his younger brother, Allie, Holden shows many signs of grief and PTSD including self harm, alcohol abuse and aggression, things that many people can relate to in one way or another. For example, when Holden is in his hotel room, he ponders the idea of suicide and tells the reader, “What I really felt like, though, was committing su...
Holden was constantly wallowed in self-pity, hatred, and regrets he had no way of moving on from his past. He counted on Allie even when he was no longer there, “Allie don’t let me disappear” (Salinger). His hope would only diminish every time he would fail again or notice another flaw in the world. Even though he had several opportunities to change his life around he treated each one the same as before, and then was disgraced when he only grew more depressed. This is one of the reasons there is so much controversy surrounding this novel on whether schools should read it, as stated by this critic, “some people complained that the novel’s language was crude and obscene” (Moss and Wilson). Holden is overly pessimistic that for many there is little inspiration in the novel. Readers do not want to act like the main character for the fact they will become alienated from society as well. “The irony, of course, is that Holden himself has already been contaminated by the world he despises” (Rholetter). Holden had so many people who wanted to watch him succeed, however he failed to notice any of them. He had animosity towards others for trying to help him yet at the same time he felt the same way towards the world when he failed once again. There is only so much a person can be helped when they are not willing to be helped. “It made me feel sad as hell-I don’t know
Twenty percent of teens in America today suffer from at least one symptom of depression.( Teenage Depression Statistics ) Depression is an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts, that affects the way a person eats and sleeps, the way one feels about oneself, and the way one thinks about things. Depression symptoms include loss of emotional expression, feelings of hopelessness, pessimism, and social withdrawal (Teenage Depression Statistics )Holden Caulfield, in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, suffers from symptoms of depression. Because of his mental illness, he is a misunderstood, confused young character who is in search of his identity and place in the world. He suffers from symptoms of depression, which are rooted in a lack of closure concerning his brother's death. The devastation Holden experiences after Allie's death is understandable. This unfortunately leads to a lack of personal motivation, low self esteem and compulsive lying. Holden's inability to self-reflect and his stubbornness in overlooking the obvious has resulted in a chronic lack of motivation. Holden lacks the necessary ability to motivate himself, which is required to survive in the 'real' world. Holden feels no need to self motivate, because all those who survive in the 'real' world, he considers phonies. He is unable to realize the importance of progress, maturity and responsibility.
Almost every person will have to say goodbye to a loved one who has died. When an adolescent goes through this experience it could traumatize them. John Green once said “Grief does not change you. It reveals you.” In other words, the loss of a loved one doesn’t change who you are but reveals your character. A novel that explores the effect of grief on a young person is The Catcher In The Rye by J.D Salinger. The Catcher In The Rye is a novel about a teenager, Holden Caulfield, who is confused and makes life changing mistakes because of his inability to accept his brother Allie’s death. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross made up the five stages of grief. The stages are denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. Holden goes through these five stages throughout the novel. Salinger uses the baseball mitt, the red hunting hat, and the carousel to explore the protagonist struggle to resolve his grief.
Imagine there's no heaven marks the beginning to the piano ballad “Imagine” by John Lennon in which the deceased singer expresses his idealistic hope for humanity. The psychological depth of Holden, the main character in J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, reveals he holds idealistic views of everyone and holds them to these generalized views. This set of idealistic hopes, though differing for Holden and Lennon, led both to their fall. Yet, even with Holden's troubling view of the world as no more than two opposing colors where everyone conforms to the generalizations of Holden's mind, teenagers relate as they too struggle to understand the complexities of the world and those around them. By applying psychological analysis to Catcher in the Rye, Holden's tendency to idealize those around him into certain archetypes developed by his own mind and consequently fear any
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...
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...