Examples Of Illness In Catcher In The Rye

The Catcher’s Illness It is said that there is nothing more depressing than somebody that has it all but is still unhappy, and this thought can be examined in the young men and women of America maybe better than anywhere else. Young adults who already have wealth, talent, and sight of a positive future, but feel alienated, depressed, and are overall mentally unhealthy, are a norm in American society. The novel Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger is written in part to describes this type of depression through main character Holden Caulfield and is expounded as Holden isolates himself and shares personal sentiments on life and his relationships with people. The feeling of alienation and loneliness are some of the most prominent symptoms
One outlook Holden gives is he has a hard time feeling self value which leads to his sadness. This is demonstrated when Holden is describing his feeling towards packing to leave Pencey. He laments, “One thing about packing depressed me a little. I had to pack these brand-new ice skates my mother had practically just sent me a couple of days before. That depressed me. I could see my mother going in Spaulding's and asking the salesman a million dopy questions—and here I was getting the ax again. It made me feel pretty sad. She bought me the wrong kind of skates—I wanted racing skates and she bought hockey—but it made me sad anyway. Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad” (???). It is seen here that Holden feels like he is letting his mother down. It saddens him that someone would go through the trouble of buying him something and then he repays them by being failing again. The toll this takes on his self worth can can explain his reluctance towards gifts. Gifts depress Holden because he feels like he can not live up to the expectations of the people giving him the gifts. He feels as if he does not deserve them. Another feeling that Holden describes is regret. When he is thirteen, Holden