The Secrets of a Teenage Life

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The Secrets of a Teenage Life
Many actions and feelings are expressed from J.D. Salinger through his character Holden Caulfield by both physical actions and expressed emotions in the book The Catcher in the Rye. The overall main message of the book is to express the troubles that are involved with growing up in the adolescence years, to Holden Caulfied, the main character of the book, growing up involves dealing with the phoniness of others and just not caring about much that is expected of life. Many negative effects come out of the adolescence years in the eyes of J.D Salinger's, Holden Caulfield. In the The Catcher in the Rye, it seems almost as if Holden is invisible to the world because of the troubles he is trying to overcome within his own life. It seems almost as if Holden is being excluded from the world around him.
To begin, anger is one of the many, major stages of depression. J.D. Salinger shows how Holden is affected by his brother, Allie’s, death. “What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud, to Allie. I do that sometimes when I get very depressed” (Salinger 98 ). This is a perfect example of Holden finally admitting his feelings of depression. Teenagers around the world are affected by depression each and every day. “Twenty percent of teens experience depression before they reach adulthood” (Borchard 1). In the book, The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger makes it clear that Holden is affected by teenage depression by expressing his emotions through physical actions. An example of one of the many physical actions that was shown by Holden was when he broke all the windows in the garage the night Allie passed away. “I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the wi...

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...life. “I'm always saying "Glad to've met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though” (Salinger 87). This quote just comes to show how much Holden does not care about anything he comes across.
In conclusion, J.D Salinger uses Holden's character in The Catcher in the Rye to express the pain, stages of depression, and the loss of care that comes along with the life of those who are in their adolescence years. Holden's character is not only expressing the feelings of adolescence, but it also living them in the book. The Catcher in the Rye perfectly represents the stages that come with adolescence. The secrets of adolescence are those feelings that are not fully shown through emotion, but are present. The hurt, pain, depression, and loss of care, all belong to the secrets of the adolescence stage of life.

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