Character Analysis Of Catcher In The Rye, By J. Caulfield

In J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden Caufield, describes in detail the parts of his life and his environment that bother him the most. He faces these problems with a kind of naivety that prevents him from fully understanding why it is that he is so depressed. His life revolves around his problems, and he seems helpless in evading them. Among others, Holden finds himself facing the issues of acceptance of death, growing up, and his own self-destructiveness.

In the controversial novel, The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger expresses his opinion on social problems. The protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is a troubled teen; he seeks help throughout the novel. Holden has been in and out of schools and can not seem to fit in. Holden has depression and turns to alcohol for all his problems due to the lack of love in his life. No one understood what he was going through which caused him to almost kill himself. J.D. Salinger uses Holden to protest society’s problems.

There are ten different personality disorders, each having specific symptoms, but all of them share certain characteristics. The first of these characteristics is that an

A person may be known to be irritable, aggressive and quick to start fights (Corner, 2014). Signs can come from a criminal past or criminal experience, possibly to develop due to living environment.

It is often said that the people one surrounds themselves with can reflect things about themselves, such as their beliefs and ideals. One’s friends and acquaintances can reveal subconscious attractions to people that fulfill their ideals or agree with the things they say, but these relationships can also help one discover their personal philosophies by reinforcing opposing views. Indeed, in J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the way Holden reacts to and interacts with secondary characters reveal his established philosophies and the values he holds most dear to him.

In Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden, had many opportunities to learn life lessons but every time his faulty thinking caused him to focus on the problem and not the solution. Whenever Holden looks at situations he negatively overgeneralizes them with a bad attitude rather than learning from it.

Holden Caulfield is a character who has been through rejection and wishes to protect others innocence. He is a teen boy who is the main character in Catcher in The Rye by J.D.Salinger. He has an older brother named DB, a younger sister named Phoebe, and a younger, deceased, brother named Allie. Holden retells his story on him, trying to be the catcher in the rye. Holden has been kicked out of different colleges. He has been rejected by different girls. Holden goes through his life story. He talks about being kicked out of Pencey, his friend Jane, his “acquaintance” Stradlater, and how, when, and where Allie died. Society is to blame for Holden Caulfield's decline in mental stability. Society does not help Holden. Instead, they ignore his

In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield’s life is composed of a great amount of contempt; he perceives society through pessimistic lenses, continuously dismissing its ways. Trying to veer off his path to adulthood, Holden often holds people accountable for their “phony” ways. He aims to “save” the children from such an outcome that he makes it his responsibility. The pivotal moment of which he transcends to maturity occurs is when he witnesses the children reach for the gold ring. Rather than blindly believing that he can save the children from sinking into the “evils” of the world and maintain their innocence, he ultimately decides to let them make their own decisions and grow up.

This is an indicator that an individual may later have complications with harming others, although not definitive. This behavior is defined by the DSM IV as someone who does not display remorse or guilt. Signs that someone is suffering from antisocial disorder may include patterns of lying, failure to conform to social norms, excessive aggressiveness, and irresponsibility. Younger people who express earnest tendencies towards voyeurism may be demonstrating early signs of psychopathic tendencies.

On the very first page of The Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield says “I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty rundown and had to come here and take it easy.” Opening the story this way tells me that at the end of the book something will happen to him that will force him to be hospitalized. I wonder what will happen and why he will be admitted. Because of this when I was reading the book I watched for symptoms and continued making predictions about why he was sent to the hospital and what sent him there.

Psychologists place personality disorders into three clusters. There is Cluster A which share psychotic symptoms similar in Schizophrenia, these include: Paranoid, Schizoid and Schizotypal personality disorders. The second cluster focuses more on emotion, these include Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic and Narcissistic personality disorders. The final cluster includes Avoidant, Dependent and Obsessive-Compulsive personality disorders, which focus on factors similar in anxiety disorders. Each of these cluster require a minimum amount of symptoms shown the diagnostic charts, in order to be diagnosed with one of them. However it takes a trained professionally to truly diagnose a patient. This is because people who look in their life will see many of their family and friends with symptoms of a personality disorder.

In the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield is faced with multiple “phonies” that divert him from those he really holds affection for. Throughout the novel Holden shows disgust for certain characters but his ability to build relationships of intimacy are most eminent. Through Allie Caulfield, Holden is able to make a more personal connection. Seeing as how he is now dead, Allie is a savior in the eyes’ of Holden when he is in the time of need. Phoebe Caulfield, Holden’s ten year old sister, shares similar tastes with Holden earning his respect as well as his time, allowing Holden to show affection to her more than any other character. Jane Gallagher although never physically present in the novel holds a special place in Holden’s heart, his first love. Through Jane, Holden is able to experience things that his brother and sister couldn 't give him, earning her his ability to show affection. With the struggle between adolescence and adulthood, Holden Caulfield, of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, finds himself through the relationships he builds with Allie and Phoebe Caulfield as well as Jane Gallagher.

One of the main signs of the disorder is impulsive behaviors, such as breaking laws and disregard of safety for self and others . (Mcafee)

After leaving Ernie’s, the night club, Holden walks forty-one blocks back to his hotel. On the way back, Holden feels cold, however, he does not have his gloves to warm his hands. At that moment he wonders who had stolen his gloves back at Pencey and what he would do if he had found out who did it. The thought makes Holden even more depressed, causing him to go to a bar however, he changes his mind and heads back to his hotel. On the way back to his room, the elevator guy offers Holden a night with a prostitute for five dollars and he accepts the offer without thought. When he gets back to his room, he prepares for the prostitute by cleaning himself up, feeling a bit sexy, yet also anxious. He begins reflecting on previous opportunities when

The Catcher in the Rye is a novel written in 1951 by author J.D. Salinger and is classified as a bildungsroman. The story portrays the story of a sixteen year old boy, Holden, who tends to endlessly criticize the world and people around him but never reflects on himself or his own character. While most bildungsroman characters show progress and growth throughout the story, Holden does not. He is rather unorthodox, or irregular from what you’d look for in a bildungsroman character. Which makes sense as Holden tries with so much effort to not be “boring” or “phony” like everyone else. His nihilistic view on the world shows to be a reflection of his own loneliness and possible depression. This in turn leads to the actual question as to whether or not our protagonist ever has his bildungsroman moment.