Habibi 1
Ramtin Habibi
Mr. Jeffs
ENG 3U1
July 15, 2014

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Essay Test

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Throughout human history, mankind has endured many periods of suffering and hardship. Although it was completely immoral, those hard times are what made our world the place it is today. It is in our human nature to experience hardship at one point in our lives as it can help us mature and better ourselves. However, when the hardship comes from several different sources, it becomes hard to learn form the many experiences. This is demonstrated throughout the narrator’s life in J.D. Salinger’s, The
Catcher In the Rye. It is shown that: poor relations between an individual and their family impacts the individual’s ability to make good decisions. Secondly, when an individual is surrounded by deceiving people, their ability to socialize and network is hindered. Finally, the constant feeling of depression harms an individual well being, both physical and mental. Ultimately, the times of hardship that an individual experiences are shaped by the outside influences of: family, deceptive societies, and mental illnesses.
Firstly, the narrator, Holden, his poor relationship with his family prevented him from making decisions that would benefit him. To begin with, Holden was always sent away to a private school during the working year. Naturally, this made him unable to

Habibi 2 communicate as frequently with his parents. Although it may have seemed like a good idea to his parents, their absence is what moulded Holden’s conscience. As parents, they are their children’s role models and teachers, their main responsibility was to instill good morals into their children. Their absence caused Holden to be easily influenced by his peers and the pressure of society to do things that are irrational for other people of his age. Furthermore, his parents never knew that he got kicked out of school until he came home for winter break. Their ignorance caused a lot of stress and was essentially the root of Holden’s problems. Because of them, he was forced to stay out of his home and find shelter elsewhere until his school officially closed for winter break.
Eventually, he decided to call his old english teacher, Mr. Antolini, in hopes of being able to pass the night at his house. His teacher gladly accepted to do so and even gave great advice to Holden during his stay. Although this might seem civil and beneficial for Holden, he was traumatized at his Mr.Antolini’s house. During his stay,
Holden suddenly woke up to Mr. Antolini’s face being very close to his his while patting
Holden’s head. The perverted act had Holden in shock and disbelief to the point that he left Mr.Antolini’s home, and stayed the night on a bench at Grand Central Station.
Had Holden’s parents been more aware of his social status and situation at the time,
Holden could have avoided that traumatizing experience. Finally, Holden had a very close relationship with his younger brother Allie. Upon Allie’s passing, Holden became unstable and and acted irrationally: “I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist.” (39). Allie’s passing took a heavy toll on Holden putting him through physical hardship. Instead of grieving with his family, Holden isolated himself and let out his anger and disbelief on the glass windows in the garage,

Habibi 3 while breaking his hand in the process. Had Holden’s parents paid more attention to him and taken better care of him, his life would have been completely different.
Secondly, Holden was constantly surrounded by people that had different values than him. Holden believed that human’s should always be truthful and express how they really feel as appose to acting the way society thinks they should do. Generally,
Holden was surrounded by people that he considered were “phonies”, people who were never their true self. Holden held onto the idea of him being the perfect example of virtue in a world full of phonies, influenced him to avoid affiliating with people and essentially alienating himself, which, ultimately, left him feeling alone and unwanted.
The constant struggle to better the people around him, and the mentality that he possessed which made his actions seem pure to him, left him feeling like an outcast in a world full of people that get along because of their similar public masks. In the novel,
Holden went on a date with a girl named Sally Hayes. Their first stop was at a theatre to watch a musical together; it was there that Sally encountered a friend of her’s that went to an Ivy League school while smoking. As soon as the boy started to talk, Holden became fed up with his personality. He went on about how great the movie was in order to impress Sally; they then had a more casual conversation: “It was the phoniest conversation you ever heard in your life, they both kept thinking of places as fast as they could, then they’d think of someone that lived there and mention their name. I was all set to puke when it was time to go sit down again. I really was.” (127-8). Holden’s disgust in the phoniness and unoriginality of the two is evident. He can’t stand how fake others act in order to impress and get along with one another. His attitude towards
Sally during the rest of the novel was influenced heavily by her phoney conversation

Habibi 4 with her friend. Through this, Holden experienced the hardship of not being able to find someone that follows his ideal way of life; although it may not seem like a real struggle, it adds onto Holden’s problems and makes him feel more lost in the large city of New
York. Finally, Holden was constantly let down by people that he thought were genuine but turned out to be more deceiving than he had expected. A prime example of this was when Holden spoke of his roommate, Stradlater. Stradlater appeared to be the most well composed individual at their school, but this was never true. Holden distinctly described Stradlater’s poor hygiene and how much it annoyed him when people thought that he was greater than he actually was. The event that really hurt
Holden was when Stradlater revealed that he might have engaged in intercourse with
Holden’s childhood love, Jane Gallagher. The fact that Jane, the innocent girl that he had cared about, fell for Stradlater’s phoniness upset him dearly, greatly contributing to his depression.
Thirdly, it was Holden’s unstable mentality consistently harmed him, both physically and mentally. Ever-since Holden found out about Stradlater’s affiliations with
Jane, Holden started to feel as if he was never good enough. The one girl that he had ever cared about, the girl that made his childhood special, Jane, would never get intimate with him but let his roommate potentially do whatever it is that he pleased with her. The feeling of insignificancy was a heavy burden on Holden’s well being as it made him feel cold and empty inside. The feeling of loneliness and depression took more of a toll on him as time passed. Eventually, Holden reached a point in his life where he became so easily depressed that he would constantly resort to heavy drinking and smoking to help numb the sorrow he was feeling. The fact that he resorted to such

Habibi 5 substances proves that he was in so much emotional and mental pain that he could no longer naturally handle it. At times he would even cry while under the influence, “It was because I was feeling so damn depressed and lonesome” (153). He plead to the reader to understand that his life had hit rock bottom and that what he was doing was all that would help him cope. Evidently, the loss of his brother Allie took the biggest toll on Holden. It had made him very mentally unstable and essentially initiated his depression. There was a moment in the novel where Holden was left alone by a prostitute, at this point he was completely alone. His misery and depression had complete control of him: “I started talking, sort of out loud, to Allie. I do that sometimes when I get very depressed.” (98). Holden mentioned how he would talk out loud as if
Allie was there with him, showing his inability to move on and adapt to his new life without his brother. His sadness put him through complete mental hardship, by some standards he was even considered insane. The mental illness started out by aggravating Holden, but as time passed the depression became more prominent in
Holden. It progressed to a point where it dictated his motives, thoughts, and actions.
The physical and emotional pain that an individual goes through are heavily influenced by their relatives, their un-accepting society, and their mental condition.
Undeveloped familial relationships play a large role in the decision making skills of an individual. When people are constantly in the presence of phoney crowds they become unable to socialize effectively. Finally, the constant and consistent feeling of loneliness and depression, negatively accepts an individual both physically and mentally. Holden
Caulfield lived a teenage life full of complications, injustice, immorality, and pain. His affiliations with other characters could be studied by the people of our generation to

Habibi 6 learn from his mistakes and better their own lives. It is commonly believed that Holden’s life would have been much better had he lived in our era, the reality is that his life was shaped by his own mistakes and the mistakes of his peers. Their actions have all been replicated in our society meaning that is human error that causes events like these to take place. In order for humanity to progress, we must learn from these mistakes and better ourselves as a whole to avoid having other people live the life of Holden
Caulfield.

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Habibi 7
Work Cited
Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Brown and Company, 1991. Print.