...Lens Mental health is an important aspect of one’s wellbeing that may be significantly impacted by a traumatic experience. The author J.D. Salinger illustrates this idea in his novel The Catcher in the Rye, which focuses on the life of the depressed protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Holden experiences the death of his young brother Allie and struggles with transitioning from his innocent childhood to his materialistic adulthood. This transition eventually influences his mental state of mind, which is evident by his lack of motivation in school, and results in him suffering from loneliness, frustration and alienation. The psychoanalytic lens discusses an individual's actions based on their conscious and unconscious mind. The Catcher in the Rye can be better analyzed through the psychoanalytic lens rather the existential lens, and this is exemplified by Holden’s desire to avoid inevitable change, his resultant isolation and his battle between his conscious and unconscious mind. Holden has a fear of change and desire to avoid...
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...surround his everyday life. Holden acts like a careless teenager. Holden has been to several prep-schools, all of which he got kicked out of for failing classes. After being kicked out of the latest, Pency Prep, he went off to New York on his own. Holden seems to have a motivation problem which apparently affects his reasoning. The basis of his reasoning comes from his thoughts. Holden thinks the world is full of a bunch of phonies. All his toughs about people he meets are negative. The only good thoughts he has are about his sister Phoebe and his dead brother Alley. Holden, perhaps, wishes that everyone, including himself, should be like his brother and sister. That is to be intelligent, real and loving. Holden’s problem is with his heart. It was broken when his brother died. Now Holden goes around the world as his fake self, wearing his mask. Holden is looking for love, peace and understanding. He is scared to love because he is afraid he might lose it like he did with his brother. That is the reason for Holden's love of the museum, he feels safe because it never changes it always stays the same. Holden is troubled with the pain of death, it effects every aspect of his life causing him to not care about the future, himself or anyone, except Phoebe and Alley. The theme of alienation is demonstrated by Holden. He alienates himself from the world because he fears change and false people, he wants love and security. Holden alienates himself from all the changes that occur around...
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...Bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, is a common mental disorder that is caused by genetics, the environment, brain structure, and chemistry. Bipolar disorder can often be misdiagnosed in teenagers since they are going through changes in their body and mind. One could see mood swings in a teenager and make the mistake of thinking he or she is going through normal changes. However, if one looks deeper into Holden’s character, one realizes that his mood swings, along with his excessive desire for sexual experiences, are actually symptoms of bipolar disorder. The first warning sign of his mental condition is when he buys Sunny, the prostitute, for the night. Although Holden feels ready to get his first time over with, when Sunny takes...
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...transition from childhood to adulthood, yet never fully completes that transition. This is displayed through his childish behavior, immature language, and enduring symbols. Salinger uses Holden’s childish character to display his attachment to childhood. Holden is expelled at every school that he goes to, which in turn creates a negative feeling towards education. Despite Penceys reputation for molding boys into men,...
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...state of depression has lots of effects on a person’s thoughts, behaviour and feelings. Depression is where a person feels very sad and very down. Depression is mostly caused by losing a loved one or being put down by lots of people. The author of The Catcher and The Rye shows lots of points leading towards Holdens depression. Holden lost his brother allie and that is what really brought holden down. Holden’s teacher Mr. Antolini Tries to point holden in the right and tell him that the path he is taking is wrong. He tells holden that seeing life as corrupt is no good and brings bad relationships with evrything. Mr. Antolini attempts to help Holden to prevent his “great fall” as he states,“the...
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...How does Salinger present Holden’s attitude to ‘childhood’ and ‘growing up’ in your three chosen extracts? [Draft Essay] ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ was written by J.D. Salinger and published in 1951. Throughout the novel a number of different themes and issues are addressed, however in this essay I will focus on ‘childhood’ and ‘growing up’ and how Holden feels about them. The theme I shall be focussing on is addressed several times in the novel but I shall only focus on three times the theme is referred to. A significant point where Holden has an unusually positive outlook related to the theme is in chapter 12. Holden is taking a cab; it was “a vomity kind of” cab that he gets if he goes “anywhere late at night.” It is clear that Holden is being his usual cynical and negative self, indicated by the word choice of the adjective “vomity”. He thought that the cab was so disgusting that it could cause him to vomit. This is a vulgar term typical of Holden’s vocabulary which generally shows his blunt and rude point of view. His mood did not improve when he noticed “a bunch of hoodlumy-guys and their dates, all of them laughing like hyenas at something you could bet wasn’t funny.” Sallinger has adapted a noun, ‘hoodlums’ to be an adjective. It reflects that Holden thinks that the people he is seeing are nothing but petty gangsters or ruffians that are of no importance; this is an example of when Holden judges people and believes he is better than them. Furthermore, the use of the simile...
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...the novel, is presented with various symbols. The symbols are clearly made evident by Holden’s (J.D. Salinger's) constant repetition of their importance. The symbols are so important and their symbolism is directly related to the major themes of the novel. Three symbols seemed to have a higher president over the others, those are the central park ducks, the museum of natural history and Holden's brother Allie himself. These are very important objects that carry a higher meaning with them.Allie, Holden’s younger brother who died several years before the events of Catcher in the Rye, was a key symbol throughout the story. When Holden remembers incidents from his past involving Allie, his attitude changes, such as when he writes the composition about Allie’s baseball glove or when Holden brakes his hand from punching all of the windows after Allie died. He feels that Allie was one of the few people who were not phony in a world full of phonies. More importantly, Allie represents the innocence and childhood that Holden strives to find throughout his journey. In Holden’s opinion, Allie represents the purity that Holden looks for in the world. Holden admits that he admires Allie more than he admires Jesus, and even prays to Allie at one point, rather then the latter. Allie is Holden’s role model, whom he judges the rest of the world according to. When Allie dies, it creates turbulence in Holden’s life, effectively destroying the innocence and childhood that Allie represents.At various...
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...Death Lives On Everyone’s lives are constantly being altered by the events occurring around them. This can change your personality and possibly your mental health. In Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, Holden’s life has been drastically altered from specific events that happened to him in his adolescence. Holden’s mental health is significantly altered due to deaths that occurred around him, mainly Allie’s death. Also due to these deaths Holden is lead to a conclusion that everyone is a phony. Finally, Holden refuses to commit to relationships with anyone after the death of Allie; he distances himself and avoids deep lasting relationships. Holden is affected strongly by James and Allie’s deaths; he is suicidal with mental problems and...
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...novel to be a coming of age novel, due to the fact that it talks about issues teenagers go through. Readers can relate to Holden Caulfield because of his disdain to the process of maturity. For example, in chapter 16, Holden's thoughts about the Museum of Natural History establishes Holden's fear on change and how overwhelmed he is of complexity. Holden wants everything to be easy to understand and a fixed, An example of this is the statues of Eskimos and Native Americans in the museum. Holden doesn't really understand whats going on around him. He acknowledges this fear with his confusion on sex, “sex is something I just don't understand. I swear to God I don't”. Holden invents a fantasy that being an adult is a world of superficiality and phoniness. Holden also feels that childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity, and honesty. In my opinion, Holden's view on childhood and adulthood are immature and foolish. Holden conceptions are very shallow and are proven shallow by his former teacher Mr. Andolini and his little sister Phoebe. Holden has a dream about being a catcher in the rye. He envisions childhood as a peaceful field of rye in which children play and rum. Adulthood, in Holden's fantasy, is equivalent to death, or a fatal fall or the edge. Holden's beliefs on childhood allow Holden to alienate himself from the real world,...
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...novel, showing that maturing is inevitable and ones life will go on. Holden Caulfield’s experiences allow his character to undergo permanent change that altered his perspectives on life. Salinger illustrated a Bildungsroman with emotional loss, life lessons learnt from encounters, and acceptance of ethics in society. Holden’s role as a developing character in Salinger’s novel demonstrated the elements used in a Bildungsroman. The first phase of a Bildungsroman involves an emotional loss, a period of awkwardness and typically ends with moral the growth of the protagonist. The emotional loss Holden experienced was the loss of his younger brother, Allie, who passed away from leukemia five years before the beginning of the novel. This event altered Holden’s psychological behavior. Holden still grieved from the passing of Allie and regretted the time he told Allie to leave him and Bobby alone. Holden reenacted that particular moment and tried to change the past: “Okay. Go home and get your bike and meet me in front of Bobby's house” (Salinger 99). Holden tried to comfort his depression by attempting to change the past through communication with his deceased brother. Due to Holden’s ongoing struggle to deal with this loss of Allie, he demonstrated traits of awkwardness in the form of cynicism. Holden’s mental state was not the only the consequence of the loss of Allie, but also due do to the way in which he perceived life. Holden had a hypocritical attitude towards everyone...
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...throughout his teenage years. (Sallinger 13-14) Regarding Holden’s abnormal physical appearance, he has grey hair with a statue of 62.5 inches. (Salinger 9) Holden's tendency is to resort to perverted ideas around sexual desires and memories. Starting out after his expulsion from Pencey Prep, Holden's journal The Catcher In The Rye gives a detail account on his adventures in New York City. Holden Caulfield is in this facility because he hallucinated Allie's existence...
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...Depression is a mood disorder in which feelings of sadness, loss, anger, or frustration interfere with everyday life for weeks or longer. It is normal for a teenager to feel sad or have uneasy feelings. When it doesn’t go away or stop, that is when it becomes a problem. It is actually more common in teens to go through depression. Grades, school, social status with peers, family, or life are some of the reasons why someone can be depressed. Holden Caulfield, from the story “The Catcher in the Rye”, was depressed because of some of these causes. He wasn’t able to find happiness and had severe guilt. The symptoms for depression can be really easy to spot. It is a change in behavior that you may see in someone. Depression symptoms can be different for every person. The more symptoms you have, and the longer you have them will more likely be that you are going through depression. All the symptoms will vary depending on what a teenager is going through. These are symptoms of depression: feeling hopelessness, appetite or weight changes, sleep changes, anger or irritability, self-loathing, concentration problems, and unexplained aches or pains. Other symptoms are excessive feeling of guilt, skipping school, sudden drop in grades, withdrawal from friends, and feeling sadness. Just like the way there are different causes for depression, there are also different way people will get treated for this. What may work for one person might not work for someone else. It will take time for...
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...something; an ambitious state of mind that gives us meaning to life. Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, has a primary ambition - to become the Catcher in the Rye – the protector of the young and innocent, as stated in his conversation with Phoebe (Salinger, 191). Completely imaginary and a hopeless fantasy, this passage underscores what is prevalent throughout the novel - the issue of Holden's black and white perspective on the dark, phony world of adulthood juxtaposed with the light, innocent, world of childhood. The important passage contributes to Holden's clinical depression as a result of his beloved brother's death, therefore his cynical view of adulthood, and his anxiety about growing up, resulting in the overall angst and alienation palpable throughout the novel, leading to his eventual catharsis. Holden's imagery of “catching” children playing in a field of rye before they fall off a cliff is unrealistic, misheard from a little boy, and it serves merely as an escape route from what he fears most about adulthood – the change and overwhelming complexity. Holden wants everything to be easily understandable and eternally fixed, similar to the Eskimos and Indians in the museum. Opposed to acknowledging that adulthood scares and mystifies him, Holden instead invents a fantasy – that childhood is an idyllic field of rye, while adulthood, like death, is a fatal fall over the edge of a cliff. Holden's shallow, one dimension understanding of childhood and...
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...angst displayed and the language used by Holden, but it is an accurate look inside the mind of someone who feels alienated. The literary critic, Michicku Kakutani, mentions that Salinger gave Holden “a voice that enabled him to channel an alienated 16-year-old's thoughts and anxieties and frustrations, a voice that skeptically appraised the world and denounced its phonies and hypocrites and bores.” Holden fails out of school and goes to New York where he interacts with people, but he thinks they are all phony, so he spends a lot of time feeling like a failure. Past events that occurred in Holden's life definitely make him judgmental, such as when his former English teacher, Mr. Antonlini, pats him on the head while sleeping, which made Holden feel uncomfortable and he felt that it was “pervy”. Betrayal is nothing new to Holden, because he feels like he is constantly being betrayed. Holden's roommate at Pency, Stradlater, who was described as a “womanizer”, was able to talk to girls easily. Holden was jealous of him because Stradlater has much more experience then he does. Stradlater...
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...bizarre actions and thoughts leave the readers in a state of perplexity when trying to figure out what is wrong with him. Does he feel too much? Or does he feel too little? The problem with Holden lies in the fact that he cannot accept change, for anything that is different in his mind is perceived with a negative connotation because he enjoys permanence and cannot connect or adapt to anyone in society, teaching the readers that...
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