Post-Traumatic Stress in Relation to Holden Caulfield

J.D. Salinger 's "The Catcher in the Rye" portrays a troubled teen in New York City. Over the few days the novel depicts, the boy displays his critical and unhealthy mindset. Eventually he has a mental breakdown. Through psychoanalysis of Holden Caulfield, one may suggest that Allie 's death, social development, and an identity crisis are large contributing factors in Holden 's mental breakdown.

     Throughout life, an individual may endure emotionally and physically straining moments causing the person to become downhearted, and or irate. These feelings are normal, but may however become a problem when these feelings prohibit someone from living a ‘normal’ life. An estimated 5.2 million American adults ages 18 to 54, or approximately 3.6 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have PTSD (Narrow, Rae, Regier). This purpose of this report is to prove whether or not Holden Caulfield, the main character of J.D. Salingers’s book The Catcher In The Rye, is depressed.

The critical lens presented in the Catcher in the Rye is very evident in the main character Holden. Using the psychoanalytic lens to read The Catcher in the Rye shows the struggle Holden has trying to deal with the "Phonies" in his everyday life that he just can't relate to. This inability to connect with the people around him reveals his emotional instability and personal flaws. The majority of his issues lye within his subconscious and he doesn’t realize the way he treats people.

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

The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, portrays Holden Caulfield as a manic-depressive. Holden uses three techniques throughout the novel to cope with his depression. He smokes, drinks, and talks to Allie. Although they may not be positive, Holden finds comfort in these three things.

Holden Caulfield encounters himself facing issues of acceptance of death, growing up, and parental neglecting that prevents him from completely understanding why it is that he is severely depressed. One of the hardships Holden must cope with is his inability to come to terms with death, of his younger brother, Allie. We often discover

Everybody feels depressed at some time or another in their lives.  However, it becomes a problem when depression is so much a part of a person's life that he or she can no longer experience happiness.  This happens to the young boy, Holden Caulfield in J.D Salinger's novel, The Catcher in the Rye.  Mr. Antolini accurately views the cause of Holden's depression as his lack of personal motivation, his inability to self-reflect and his stubbornness to overlook the obvious which collectively results in him giving up on life before he ever really has a chance to get it started.

Salinger depicts Holden to have clinical depression, like many other young people. According to The Mayo Clinic, clinical depression is extremely common, affecting over 3,000,000 people every year, being most common ages fourteen and older. Holden expresses a lack of motivation and concentration, two very clear symptoms of clinical depression, multiple times throughout the novel. He expresses his affection for Jane and deep desire to get back in touch with her, but always seems to lose motivation just before the moment comes (59, 105, 116, 150, 202). Holden also explicitly expresses depression, using the word depressed, depressing, or other variants over several times throughout the book. Noteworthy examples include when he says, “It was even

“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, from J.D. Salinger’s, 1948 novel, The Catcher in the Rye has been psychoanalyzed by many readers. Psychoanalysis is insightfully looking at a characters action 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 relations

Holden recognizes and perceives to be alienated from the adult world thus causing himself to believe he is depressed. Holden believes he is depressed from viewing the adult world and thinking that it is phony. He believes that the world is phony, superficial, hypocritical, and shallow. He views this world everyday and realizes that one day he will have to step into it, but every time he thinks about the world surrounding him it causes him to become depressed. Holden becomes depressed because he desires to remain a child were innocence is preserved and not drastically taken away. In Holden?s scenario, he feels that his innocence was taken away by witnessing the suicide of his close friend and the death of dear brother. Holden sees the world that he has to become a part of and desires more to not be a part of it. This hatred of stepping into the adult world causes Holden believe he is depressed and

14.8 million Americans are affected by depression each year (ADAA/Depression) . Depression can affect people of any age, but it affects teenagers at a higher rate than any other age group. In the Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield goes through life changing events that make him develop depression. Throughout the novel, Holden displays clear symptoms of depression as he loses interest in everything he used to enjoy, has trouble at school and, has thoughts of suicide.

‘The Catcher in the Rye’ is a classic novel set in the 1950’s. Holden Caulfield is a young 16 year old boy walking through life, hardships, and criticism towards life. Throughout Holden’s story, his odd behavior is displayed in a manner which opens the readers’ eyes to an entirely new persona. One that sees the worst in everything, one that doesn’t see the reality of things, a mind unable to decipher the beauty which the world holds within. Through his behavior and thoughts, the reader is led to believe that, from the start, there’s an abnormality to Holden’s thought process. His hopelessness and lack of motivation are signs of Major Depressive Disorder. Major depressive order is a mental health disorder characterized by mood swings,

In terms of reliving the past, most of the book can be considered a flashback. Holden is always dwelling on his memories and many of them involve Allie. “He was terrifically intelligent...He was also the nicest.”(Salinger 50). Holden talked about Allie often and how much he liked him. The brothers seemed to be very close and while Holden tends to criticize the faults in many people and call them “phonies,” he describes Allie with only compliments. Holden also uses his beloved brother as a support system. Though Allie died years ago, Holden uses his

Though Holden focuses on his depression, he represents a large part of the United States’ population. On several occasions, he describes his desolation. Mentally lost and lonely in New York City, Holden finds himself with a headache and the inability to sleep, saying, “I think I was more depressed than I ever was in my whole life” (Salinger 214). Relatively, the highest rate of depression occurs from ages 12-17 (Pratt)

When the mind protects itself from outside pain it uses multiple defense mechanisms according to Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytical Theory.In J.D.Salinger’s novel, The Catcher and the Rye, Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, is shielding himself from all outside experiences that cause pain to his inner psyche. Holden has many repressed memories, and as a result, he shields himself using the mechanics which are in the Psychodynamic Theory also written by Sigmund Freud.When the book begins Holden does not introduce himself like most typical Novels about people's life, instead, he knows what the reader wants. According to him the reader “...will probably want to know