Holden Caulfield Character Analysis

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In the book The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield’s life comes to a halt. His thoughts, feelings, and even his everyday emotions changed forever when his brother Allie passed away. Holden tucked himself away and became angry, lonely, and depressed. He didn't know where or who to turn to. He bottled up all of his emotions and pushed people away. Holden Caulfield never had the chance to grieve the loss of his little brother.

On the day Allie died, Holden became angry at the world; he took his anger out on anything and everything. In J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye, Holden states, “I was only thirteen when they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage….It was …show more content…
After being kicked out of Pencey, he spent his nights roaming the cold, dark streets with the sliver of hope remaining. Holden began drinking his nights away and chatting with girls just to make him feel a little less lonely. “There isn’t any night club in the world you can sit in for a long time unless you can at least buy some liquor and get drunk. Or unless you’re with some girl that really knocks you out” (Salinger 98). Drink after drink it started to seem like Holden was just trying to find a friend at the bottom of the bottle.
If you look up the word depression, you'll find this: An illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts and affects the way a person eats, sleeps, and feels about him or herself. Holden was depressed about many things; growing up, not having any friends, and so on, but the main cause of his depression is Allie's death. “I felt so depressed, you can’t even imagine. What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud to Allie, I do that sometimes when I get very depressed” (Salinger 129). Evil thoughts filled his head and he even wished he would die. Holden tried showing his emotions, but he did it in all the wrong ways. He pushed people away, he insulted them and made them want nothing to do with him. Holden needed help but he didn’t know how to
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