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Holden sense of loss and his fear in the catcher in the rye
Holden's coping mechanisms catcher in the rye
Catcher in the rye and mental health
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Holden caulfield meets several criterias of having post traumatic stress disorder. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that 's triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event. Holden meets by far to many criterias for this not to be his disease. A flashback can vary in severity. A flashback may be a temporary occurrence, and a person may maintain some connection with the present moment. On the other hand, during a flashback, a person may lose all awareness of what is going on around them, being taken completely back to their traumatic event. The entire book is just about …show more content…
And that’s hardly a complete list. What do these all have in common? Loss. Sadness is a reaction we have automatically and outside any direct control when we realize we’ve lost something that matters. Depressed or depression appeared 41 times in the book. Holden was happy about five times at the max. Sadness is a major theme of The catcher in the rye. Chapter one, What i was really hanging round for, I was trying to feel some kind of goodbye. I mean i have left schools and places i did not even know i was leaving them i hate that. i do not care if it is a sad goodbye, but when i leave a place i like to know i am leaving it. if you don 't you feel even worse. In chapter 2 he also talks very depressing. After i shut the door and started back to the living room he yelled something at me , but i couldn 't exactly hear him. i am pretty sure he yelled good luck at me i hope not. I hope to hell not. id never yell good luck at anybody. it sounds terrible; when you think about it. Its obvious that he is very depressed and sadness has over taken
There is one universal truth that will exist through out all of time and space that affects all that live to experience it. That truth is known as grief. We all experience grief, and for Holden Caulfield, grief is a major aspect of his life, the force that drives him to do everything he does in the novel, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. There are seven stages to this emotion known as grief: denial, depression, anger, bargaining, guilt, reconstruction, and finally, acceptance. There are many parts in the novel that could have influenced Holden’s grief, but the main one that most people who read the novel have figured it out was the death of his little brother Allie. The root to Holden’s grief lies with his brother which cause Holden’s to act and change the way he does in the novel.
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.
Holden Caulfield is a typical teenager, with normal depression caused by overdramatics and worrying. His depression to me is solely based on his huge obsession of worrying, which is a behavioral symptom. While the other symptoms do affect him greatly, his constant fear of being alone, growing up, and fitting in causes his depression to grow. Even though he has such a negative view on life, it can be changed by a change in heart and
Often times, one’s impression of something is based on people or things that ‘stick out,’ or are memorable. People in the spotlight in contemporary popular culture, such as: musicians, writers, actors and other celebrities, are purposely making themselves ‘stick out,’ so that these people are memorable, or become more famous by heightening their national profile with outrageous statements, outfits, and actions. Literature, rather than using outrageous statements or actions, uses different kinds of characters and their corresponding actions to make works more memorable. J.D. Salinger, in his novel The Catcher in the Rye, uses the character of Holden Caulfield, a rebellious adolescent, and his stream of consciousness to captivate and relate
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."
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...
J.D Salinger’s novel, Catcher In The Rye is about a teen, Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the narrative. Holden is full of unique problems and most of the time lost in his own world, that can’t face reality. The psychoanalytic theory arranges a lens of definition when working at Holden Caulfield. Holden is seen as a lonely, rebellious teen who flunked out of an all boys private school, Pencey Prep. Failing school exemplifies how Holden controls his own decisions in the real world. As stubborn Holden is, opening up his persona and experiences to people is very hard for him, “I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me…” (Salinger 1). From a Freudian psychoanalytical perspective Holden would seem to keep all his thoughts all bottled up, not speaking, and opening up to people. “The preconscious holds information we’ve stored from past experience or learning. This information can be retrieved from memory and brought into awareness at any time.” (Nevid 469). Holden is one step closer to becoming a better changed person by speaking to his psychiatrist, and there is only way to find out if he did.
ccording to the 1990 Veterans organization report, one in every three Vietnam veterans that were in heavy combat suffers from post-traumatic stress; this includes thirty-three percent of soldiers who went to Vietnam, or nearly one million troops, who gave into post-traumatic stress. PTSD must have been common in the group of soldiers in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” due to the amount of burdens each soldier carried. Throughout the story, O’Brien demonstrates theme of psychological, physical and mental burdens carried by every soldier. He emphasizes these burdens by discussing the weight that the soldiers carry; their psychological and mental stress they have to undertake as each of them experience the brutality of the Vietnam War. The physical burden that each soldier carried was a necessity for them due to their emotional burdens that they carried.
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
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
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.
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
Manic-Depressive Behavior Exhibited in The Catcher in the Rye. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, portrays Holden Cawfield, a New York City teenager in the 1950's, as a manic-depressive. Holden's depression starts with the death of his brother, Allie. Holden is expelled from numerous schools due to his poor academics, which are brought on by his depression. Manic depression, compulsive lying, and immaturity throughout the novel characterize Holden.
Mr. Antolini?s theory as to what is wrong with Holden is right on, it?s just too bad he was unable to get through to Holden. Due to the fact that Holden has already given up on himself and is unwilling to apply the valuable advice he has been given. He has lost the substantial ability to find happiness in life and therefore can?t find the energy to motivate himself in anything he does. It?s a tragedy that someone as bright as Holden Caulfield is unable to find the strength within himself to persevere in a world of insanity.
President Barack Obama has said, “Too many Americans who struggle with mental health illnesses are still suffering in silence, rather than seeking help”. While many mental disorders can easily be treated, they are extremely taxing on the victim and are challenging to diagnose. In final analysis, Holden Caulfield suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder (manic depression) and psychosis. From a psychiatric point of view, there is hope for Holden in the future, but only if he is genuinely avid in getting back to a state of normalcy.