Holden Caulfield Psychological Analysis
Holden Caulfield has difficulty coping in life with his judging, loneliness, depression, and anti-social behaviour. Holden is cynical in life and rarely ever is happy. An anti-social person is described as Persistent lying, using charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain or for sheer personal pleasure, intense egocentrism, sense of superiority, repeatedly violating the rights of others by the use of dishonesty and misrepresentation, hostility, significant irritability, agitation, impulsiveness, aggression or violence, poor relationships, irresponsible work behavior and failure to learn from the negative consequences of behavior; according to Mayo Clinic.com. Holden displays all of these symptoms. Things symptoms are also habits of other people, just not serve enough for them considered to be anti-social or carrying one specific trait, like the habit of lying for example. Holden claims these people to be phonies but in fact, he does the same thing. "One of the biggest reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded by phonies. That's all. They were coming
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in the goddam window."(Salinger 19) Holden considers himself to be brilliant and that is why everyone hates him. His superiority complex is one reason that alienates him from everyone else. The other reason is his depression, he yearns for the company of others but always finds reasons to see them as phonies."...expelled from Pencey, where he feels just as lonely as he has in every other school he's been kicked out of.
He's so lonely, in fact, that he even spends free time with his fellow boarders – who he often hates – just to avoid spending a Saturday night by himself."(The Dormouse,"The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger - Review.") Throughout his three days in New York, he tends to get worse, even dropping to thoughts of suicide from the inability to make friends and cure his depression. He also realizes something besides the never ending phoniness. He should be catching children in the rye fields so they don't fall off the cliff and become phonies or lose their innocence. Holden is a depressed, anti-social, judgmental and lonely person, and it does not get better, his New York trip makes sure of
it.
in the goddam window."(Salinger 19) Holden considers himself to be brilliant and that is why everyone hates him. His superiority complex is one reason that alienates him from everyone else. The other reason is his depression, he yearns for the company of others but always finds reasons to see them as phonies."...expelled from Pencey, where he feels just as lonely as he has in every other school he's been kicked out of.
He's so lonely, in fact, that he even spends free time with his fellow boarders – who he often hates – just to avoid spending a Saturday night by himself."(The Dormouse,"The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger - Review.") Throughout his three days in New York, he tends to get worse, even dropping to thoughts of suicide from the inability to make friends and cure his depression. He also realizes something besides the never ending phoniness. He should be catching children in the rye fields so they don't fall off the cliff and become phonies or lose their innocence. Holden is a depressed, anti-social, judgmental and lonely person, and it does not get better, his New York trip makes sure of
it.