Keeping these things in mind, Holden Caulfield is presented much like the author. Caulfield has a very immature attitude that fall under the category of Ego-Defensive. The Ego-Defensive category has four subcategories within itself called; denial, repression, projective, and rationalization, that are labeled as defense mechanisms through psychological lenses. According to McGraw-Hill’s Dictionary of Modern Medicine, denial is the “primitive–ego defense–mechanism by which a person unconsciously negates the existence of a disease or other stress-producing reality in his environment, by disavowing thoughts, feelings, wishes, needs, or external reality factors that are consciously intolerable.” Holden presents his state of denial in the way he tries to maintain his relationship with his deceased brother, Allie. …show more content…
Holden Caulfield justifies his violent outburst as it being an unconscious action, denying what is consciously intolerable. Projection is the following ego-defense mechanism, an unconscious defense mechanism by which an individual attributes his or her own unacceptable traits, ideas, or impulses to another, stated by Mosby’s Medical Dictionary. In The Catcher in the Rye. this mechanism is presented when Caulfield claims that, “All morons hate it when you call them a moron.” Because he himself can’t consciously accept himself, he unconsciously and rudely blames everyone else as ignorant. Then there is rationalization, the psychoanalytic defense mechanism through which irrational behavior, motives, or feelings are made to appear reasonable, states Falex Partner Medical Dictionary. An irrational behavior that Caulfield claims to have is in chapter six when he says, “When I really worry about something, I don't just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don't
The loss of his older brother and the absent parents have really affected Holden’s behavior. He lives a life without any care but with exception of younger children. Holden has a fascination with younger children and their innocence possibly because he wasn’t able to enjoy his adolescent years and nor did his brother. Holden mentions “‘Every time I'd get to the end of a block I'd make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I'd say to him, "Allie, don't let me disappear.
Through the traumatic life event that was the death of Allie, he was frozen in time psychologically, as the immature creature he is seen as now. The aforementioned habit of calling others phony is quite immature and childish, similar to how a child would call someone names when angered. “Traumatic life events can cause the child to become ‘stuck’ at a particular level of psychological development... s/he may, therefore, often seem immature.” (Hosier, 1) Allie’s death is something in Holden’s life that he has been unable to come to terms with, as he was never given closure.
Both Holden Caulfield from J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Huckleberry Finn from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are the main protagonists of their respective texts. Both Caulfield and Huck undertake a journey in their text, in which the character learns from their experiences and meet new people, who alter their outlook on life. Both these characters are still not mature, and this is shown throughout the two books, but the boys have to mature soon, as they are becoming adults.
In the story The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger. This story is about a teenager who feels misplaced in life and is unhappy with his surroundings. The main character, Holden Caulfield, hops around from school to school taking us on his adventure from school in Pennsylvania to his house in New York City. If Holden, or a child like him were to attempt this by themselves today they wouldn 't succeed like Holden did. In the story Holden does many crazy things that a teenager wouldn 't be able to do .
Through Holden’s complicated journey of attempts to reach out to find companionship, or even just someone to talk to, someone he commonly mentions seeming to bring him a sense of comfort is his little brother, Allie, who passed away during Holden’s childhood. Allie is someone Holden deeply cares about, if not the person he cares about and loves the most. One way this is demonstrated is through a writing piece he did for a friend at his old school, Pencey, in which he described the only thing he has left of Allie: “I wrote about my brother Allie’s baseball mitt… You’d have liked him. He was two years younger than I was, but he was about 50 times more intelligent… He was also the nicest, in lots of ways” (49).
Throughout the book, Holden is struggling to get by. The death of his brother Allie has left him in a tough spot. Holden doesn’t exactly know how to deal with this. The different stages of grief are represented through Holden. Holden shows denial and anger when he flashbacks to one of his memories after his brother’s death.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual”. In the book Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield’s lies become habitual throughout the book. Holden is a sixteen-year-old boy, who has been kicked out of several schools including, most recently, Pencey Prep. Holden’s younger brother, Allie, died when Holden was only thirteen and his older brother is too busy working for Hollywood to care about Holden. Although his mother cares immensely for him, Holden saddens her by failing academically.
Holden Caulfield Is Mental Roughly three percent of the United States population, approximately 314,341,830 people, suffers from bipolar disorder. Holden Caulfield, from Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, has bipolar II disorder. This particular disorder is when an individual displays two extreme demeanors, yet not at persistent levels as shown in bipolar I disorders. This novel was written during an era that did not acknowledge mental illness very often; therefore Holden did not have the tools at his disposal to learn healthy coping mechanisms.
It is very closely related to his struggle against growing up. Holden’s enemy is the adult world and cruelty and artificiality. The people he admires all represent or protect innocence. He thinks of Jane Gallagher, for example, not as a
A. Allie’s death causes Holden to become obsessed with death and this obsession makes him believe that growing up and becoming a “phonie” is like dying; this belief that is planted inside Holden’s head when Allie died is what sends him on a quest to preserve children’s innocence and save them from the “death” of growing up. B. Salinger includes the traumatic story of Allies death that happened years in advance to provide an explanation for Holden’s obsession with death and how he sees loss of innocence as equivalent to dying. Allie died with his innocence still intact, so Holden does not want other children to grow up and have their innocence “die”. C. Holden even admits to being mentally unstable after his brother’s traumatic death when he says, “I was only 13, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all
Throughout “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D Salinger, Holden Caulfield shows great difficulty making long and meaningful connections with other people. Holden believes he is the normal one but it is actually the other way around. He holds on to a deep emotional road block of the death of his innocent brother Allie. Holden keeps this dragging around with him which causes him to veer from connecting and having a long term relationship with others.
As the book starts Holden describes his childhood and how he has been kicked out of several school and once more again from his currently school, giving a sense of irresponsibility and no care in the world. Holden later on mentioned slowly the loss of his brother due to leukemia and how he reacted outrageously by breaking the windows of his garage home. As a reader one would view that behavior as abnormal, but Peter Shaw descried it as a normal behavior for a fictional character in the 1950s and by mentioning that Holden, “is presenting in a somewhat different manner than are the sentimentalized young people in other novels if his period” (par. 3), admitting that Holden was somewhat of an outcast of a character even for its time he is still considered normal. Shaw also challenged the reader’s view of Holden by emphasizing that Holden is not a real person, but a fiction character developed in the 1950s and in fact a mad psychological character is normal and made the reading rather more interesting and acceptable during that time. As readers someone may come across as understanding Holden’s behavior due to a loss and everyone mourns differently and as Shaw said, “ the one period of life in which abnormal behavior is common rather than exceptional” (par.
In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield is a peculiar character portrayed as a skeptic living in “a world of phonies” in circa 1950. These personality traits can be seen through his doubts of society as well as his way of thinking and acting toward others. He also demonstrates a lack of responsibility adding to his role as a slacker. Holden flunks out of school repeatedly and has no desire to confront his parents. He mopes around the city for days, delaying the inevitable punishments he’s sure to get.
Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has abnormal tendencies. Although he could just be a typical teenager, dealing with difficult situations, after analyzing his behavior it is believed that he is suffering from a mental ailment of some sort. Events from Holden’s past are still currently haunting him and it is evident that he is struggling. He needs the guidance of those around him in order to help himself through these tough time.
This describes Holden to-a-t, because of his alienation problem, his conflict with “phoniness” and his struggle of growing up and leaving his small problems behind him. Throughout the novel,