Catcher in the Rye Essay

On the surface of JD Salinger's novel, Catcher in the Rye is a coming of age novel detailing the story of Holden, a sixteen year old boy struggling through adolescence and trying to resist adulthood. He displays typical teenage characteristics including social awkwardness, loneliness, obsession with sex and confusion about being an adult and growing up. Although these are all normal challenges in adolescence, Salinger goes deeper into Holden's mind, building up details. The careful reader soon realizes Holden's borderline insanity with his unstable view on life. Holden's failures at normal relationships and unhealthy obsession over a lagoon of insignificant ducks all point to the fact that he is not an ordinary teenager, but mentally unstable and on the verge of insanity.

Every opportunity that Holden has to bond with people, he shoots the conversation down in order to avoid any real relationships. This is bizarre behavior because he is desperately lonely and frequently exclaims his need for a connection with someone. When Holden first arrives at the Penn Station, he desperately wanted to talk to someone. Every person he thinks about calling, he quickly finds a reason not to call them. After twenty minutes in the phone booth, he gives up: "So I ended up not calling anybody at all" (59). These words convey his defeatist attitude. This even goes to the extent of somebody trying to have a relationship with him and he sabotages it. He calls a girl named Faith Cavendish (a friend of a friend) who was said to be "easy." He is so desperate that he calls someone he doesn't even know. She ends up warming up to him in their late phone call. He wants to make a date with her, but she can only do so the next day. Even though he is available, he shuts down the opportunity: "Tonight's the only time I can make it" (66). This illustrates his loneliness and disparity. Again he fails. He cuts off any connection he could have had with Faith therefore rendering him as lonely as before if not more lonely. This mental instability even goes back to when he was in boarding school with some people in the dorm. Ackley was discussing the hat that Holden was wearing:

"Where the hellja get that hat?" he said. "New York." "How much?" "A buck." "You got robbed." [...] He took another look at my hat.[...] "Up home we wear a hat like that to shoot deer in, for Chrissake," he said. "That's a deer shooting hat." "Like hell it is." I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye, like i was taking aim at it. "This is a people shooting hat," I said. "I shoot people in this hat." (22)

This demonstrates the social awkwardness of Holden with other people his age.f When he says "people shooting hat" this symbolizes shooting them down so he doesn't have to deal with them. This makes him feel more accomplished without him actually having to strive to be successful. Normally success makes one feel good about themselves. It only makes Holden feel phony therefore he shoots other people down to make himself feel better. Because Holden is so afraid of a failed relationship, he cuts off any possible connction. There is no chance of failure if the relationship doesn't exist at all and that is his tactic. When he stares at the hat, it's eerie. Could he be a Columbine sort of thing waiting to happen? Either way, this shows psychotic behavior. At one point in his life, there was a girl named Sally Hayes who was actually interested in Holden. This was his perfect opportunity for him to bond with someone for a long term relationship. At this point, Holden was sharing his entire plan for the rest of his life and she was not agreeing with him, so he begins to get angry. "Don't shout please, old Sally said. Which was funny because i wasn't even shouting." (130) The fact that Holden does not realize he was shouting only reinforces the theory that he is insane. Again, this is an example of him sabotaging a relationship that could have been. Sally actually took a liking to him it seemed and being Holden, he was not able to commit and remain in a normal, sane relationship. He even at one point called her "a pain in the ass" which made her cry. Then old Luce comes in. Luce is one of Holden's "friends" and he was so desperately lonely that he invited him out for a drink. When they settle in and Luce gets a dry martini, Holden starts bombarding Luce with all kind of personal sex questions. Apparently, Holden did this before they parted from The Whooton School. So, Luce tells him that "I refuse to answer any typical Caulfield questions tonight" (146). This of course was not something that Caulfield expected to hear. When Holden is caught off guard in a relationship, he begins to act juvenile and drives the person away. This is what occurred with