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. Allie Caulfield is an important person to Holden and his death affects him greatly. In response to his brother 's passing, Holden attempts to recover by using defense mechanisms as a shield against reality. The concept of defense mechanisms strategies for avoiding or reducing threatening feelings such as fear and anxiety" (Strickland 182). While …show more content…
Because he believes himself to be good looking, his appearance is not an issue. However, he tends to push others away (probably unintentionally). Therefore, his peers avoid or ignore him. Peer rejection instigates low self-esteem in Holden, resulting in feelings of loneliness and depression in addition to social difficulties. Throughout the story, Holden frequently mentions feeling depressed and lonely. He also has problems getting along with people. Few outside his family desire him around. An example of this is occurs when Holden meets with Luce, an old prep school acquaintance, in a bar and is blatantly cast off. An impending identity crisis is another contributing factor in Holden 's breakdown. According to Plotnik, "Identity refers to how we describe ourselves and includes our values, goals, traits, interests and motivations" (394). Erik Erikson theorized about identity by way of "eight developmental periods during which an individual 's primary goal is to satisfy desires associated with social needs" (Plotnik 393). These stages span from infancy to old age. During adolescence, Erikson views people in the psychosocial stage of identity vs. role confusion. This stage involves finding a sense of self through trial and error. If this stage is unsuccessfully completed, the adolescent will experience roll-confusion, resulting in low self-esteem and social withdrawal. These people will likely feel
Adolescence is popularly known to be a very tumultuous stage in a person’s life. In the adolescent stage (also coined the identity vs. role confusion stage by theorist Erik Erikson) bodies are changing rapidly, emotions are unfamiliar and unexplainable, and refraining from succumbing to peer pressure is more challenging than ever.
When Allie dies, Holden is filled with grief and has no idea how to deal with it. Holden is only thirteen when faced with this new struggle, and his parents don’t help him deal with his emotions. He punches through a window and messes up his
Holden never made peace with the death of Allie, instead of talking about it openly he thinks he can just forget the death. Instead however he etched Allies death in his head by in a way making him his spiritual guardian because he believes that no one's going to protect him the way the catcher in the rye would protect kids falling of the cliff. Holden pushes away people because they don’t provide things that can help them. Holden throughout the book more specifically after the death on Allie he hasn’t been the same he’s been constantly flunking out of school.
This relates to the novel because Holden is depressed. Throughout the book Holden's depression gets worse. He shows lack of responsibility throughout the book showing that he feels unwanted. He frequently blames himself for Allie's death, and this makes him think that he had to save other people's innocence instead of his own.
Holden never going to Allie’s funeral gives us insight into why Holden is still holding onto Allie. After Allie’s death, Holden still went through experiences that caused his BPD, neglect and separation. During the time following Allie’s death, Holden’s family was in great grieving, making Holden feel isolated and not getting the attention he needed to fully grow mentally as a child (“National Allegiance on Mental Health”). Holden also expresses twice, that his mother is still grieving over Allie’s death by stating his mother, “still isn’t over my brother Allie yet” (Salinger 155). Holden is also never close to anyone. He meets with his family a limited amount of time throughout the year, and is kicked out of schools, giving him no permanent guidance in his life. Holden constantly describes his expulsion as, getting “the ax” (107). He shows a continuous changing in guardians, because of his attachment to both Mr. Spencer and Mr. Antolini, both old school teachers from schools he flunked out of. He also dealt with the separation from D.B. his other brother, who moved to Hollywood, Holden seems to be very inspired by him throughout the novel, but is mad that he left (1).
The Catcher in the Rye has been described, analyzed, rebuffed, and critiqued over the years. Each writer expresses a different point of view: It is a story reflecting teen-ager's talk--thoughts-emotions--actions; or angst. I believe it is an adult's reflection of his own unresolved grief and bereavements. That adult is the author, J.D. Salinger. He uses his main character, Holden, as the voice to vent the psychological misery he will not expose -or admit to.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger’s protagonist, Holden Caulfield suffers from depression due to the death of his younger brother, Allie. Allie’s premature passing elicits Holden’s cynical views of the world and the “phonies” around him. Holden isolates himself from those around him in order to shy away from the complexities of life. Salinger uses a hat, a museum, and a merry-go-round to illuminate Holden’s inner turmoil with people, the notion of adulthood, and growing up. Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and the studies of Ego, Superego, and Id are used to show the significance of Holden’s behavior in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.
The author has put in plenty of themes, messages, ideas, issues, and motifs. The character, Holden Caulfield is alienated from society, is experiencing the painfulness of growing up, thinks that the adult world is full of phoniness, and is sick of hearing about the American Dream from his teachers. JD Salinger has created a book that has raised plenty of questions and controversy towards the readers. The Catcher in the Rye shows how a teenage mind works. JD Salinger has used a stream of consciousness writing style where the character (Holden Caulfield) talks in first person as he presents his thoughts and feelings to the readers. The setting has taken place in the early fifties and the book uses a lot of profane words. The New York
It 's obvious Holden doesn’t like the fact that he feels inferior to his peers. His feelings of inferiority are in contrast to his high goals of superiority. Whether it is with his younger siblings, or with his peers, it seems that Holden will take advantage of any moment that allows him to feel less inferior inside to cope with his inferiority complex. Holden 's figuratively and literally looks down on people in order to feel superior to them. Joanne Irving explains this concept:
Where do the ducks go during the Winter when the water is frozen? In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the character, Holden Caulfield, has an underlying mental condition. He failed out of four schools; he saw his friend commit suicide; and his younger brother died of cancer. These life-changing experiences paved the way for Holden’s insecure and unstable life. By his narration, Holden hints at his disorder throughout the book without fully explaining his condition. Holden’s many insecurities, his teetering on the edge of childhood and adulthood, and his irrational ideas help the reader realize that Holden has a mental problem.
One of the hardships Holden must cope with is his inability to come to terms with death, in particular that of his younger brother, Allie. Holden seems to have experienced a
Holden mentions Allie in the book quite often when he is feeling down. Allie was everything that Holden’s not. “He was terrifically intelligent.” His teachers were always writing letters to my mother , telling her what a pleasure it was to have a
Erikson tells us that there are eight stages of development and that each implies a difficulty or emotional crisis. These stages influence the psychosocial development of young people between these stages are; Community dimensions, which is to find a connection between what the young man understood within their cultural norms. (Study, work, ethical values, friendships, sex). The dynamics of conflict, where the teenager often have contradictory feelings, from feelings of vulnerability exacerbated to have large individual perspectives. Personal evolutionary periods, because each individual has their own evolutionary period will depend both on biological, psychological, and social. Young expresses these changes depending on the models received, and that no young person is formed in isolation. First you receive the support of parental models, and later of Community designs. After passing the historical aspects. Different stressful personal situations can have a negative influence on the construction of identity, as could be the loss of a loved one, financial difficulties, abuse or
I chose Erik Erikson's Personality Theory of Life-Span Identity and Identity Crises to explain my personality development because I believe that a person never stops changing in all aspects, until death, and according to Erikson, it takes a life-span to develop an identity as well as personality. People pass eight stages during the course of their lives, in which segments or certain aspects of one's personality are formed, revised or discarded.
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