Comparing Catcher In The Rye And Holden Caulfield

Words: 1032
Pages: 5
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Nicole Martinez
Mrs. Kehrmeyer
AP Lang, Period 1
3 March 2017
Emotional Turmoil of a Teenage Boy Over the course of life, many people have experienced a traumatic event or tragedy in their life. However, many of those people develop coping mechanisms to deal with its effects on their everyday life as well as their overall mentality. Whether it be courageous or cowardly, they will use whatever they can to help deal with the pain that has come upon them. J.D Salinger, author of The Catcher in the Rye, and Holden Caulfield, an unstable teenager constantly being kicked out of school after school, have both suffered through traumatic events in their lives which had affected them later along the road. World War II took hold of Salinger, made him …show more content…
After he graduated from Valley Forge and beginning another attempt at attending college, Salinger was pushed by professor he met at Columbia University. Whit Burnett convinced him to use his skills to write for publications such as Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, and Story, as mentioned by the editors of “J.D Salinger Biography,” Biography.com. In an interview with David Shields and Shane Salerno on their biography, Salinger, they spoke of Salinger serving as a soldier in World War II, and how he was believed to be working on The Catcher in the Rye during the war. They also suggest that to him, working on the novel at the time was, “...almost as a talisman to keep him alive...” Shields and Salerno also add that when he was finished and ready to publish, he struggled even further. One of the publishers he approached to get his work published hurt him deeply, which even could have even caused even more reason to Salinger’s later actions. After he had published the novel, he did not expect as much fame as he received and soon became overwhelmed. This fame is what caused his later isolation from the rest of the world, “success he had seemingly craved early in life became something he ran away from once it came” (Biography.com). After his isolation, Salinger later died, married to his final wife, Colleen …show more content…
Holden blamed his failures in school due to him not applying himself to his subjects, but he does not clearly state why he did not apply himself besides his thoughts of people being phonies or . English was the only class he passed at Pencey, as he admits, “‘I passed English alright,” I said, “because I had all that Beowulf and Lord Randal My Son stuff when I was at Whooton School”’(Salinger 10). He only applied himself in a class in which he feels he can express himself. Saul McLeod, Simply Psychology, “Psychological Theories of Depression,” decribes lack of interest as a symptom of depression after the loss of a loved one or some sort of similar situation. McLeond uses Sigmund Freuds psychoanalytical theory of personality and B.F Skinners “Operant Conditioning” to back up his claims. When McLeond emphasized on Operanat Conditioning and inferred, “Depressed people usually become much less socially active.” and, “For example, when a loved one is lost, an important source of positive reinforcement has lost as well.” and when applying this information onto Holden, how he did not want to put any effort in any of his other classes, it diagnoses him as a depressed person based on what he shows in the beginning of the book. Even if he does not admit to the reason why, we can already see it and many others after the first chapter. Holdens brother, Allie is one of the causes of his
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