Holden Caulfield and Depression

Depression can be caused by many different triggers including loss or death, which is identified in “Catcher in the Rye,” a novel written by J.D Salinger. The protagonist; Holden Caulfield becomes seriously depressed to the point where he cannot deal with people and every day life around him. The author describes Holden as a person that does not care about where he goes with his life, but the one thing that gets in his way is depression, which causes him to be stressed and have a lot of issues. Plot/conflict, and character analysis are two literary elements to support this. J.D Salinger describes Holden as mentally unstable, lonely, and depressed. An example of his loneliness and depression is when Sunny the prostitute leaves Holden alone in his hotel room after she finds out he doesn’t want to have sex with her, and he says: “I felt so depressed, you can’t even imagine. What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud to Allie” (Salinger, 98). Allie his younger brother’s traumatic death was the cause of Holden’s depression, especially since he had a close relationship with him. This quote shows what Holden’s character is like, because as soon as he is alone, he thinks about his dead brother and it conjures up uncontrolled emotions for him. Another example of his depressive behavior is when Holden says: “Even all the whory-looking blondes weren’t around anymore, and all of a sudden I felt like getting the hell out of the place. It was too depressing,” it shows when he is alone he makes excuses such as the place being a crumby hotel and how that depressed him, when in reality being alone was the root of his depression because he had no one to talk to (80).
This whole novel shows how Holden has to face his problems with depression and coping with loss or death. He has to deal with his older brother D.B living in Hollywood and Allie being dead. The plot is when Holden leaves Pencey Prep and is alone in New York, because he does not want to go back home to face his