“You know those ducks in that lagoon right near Central Park South? That little lake? By any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over? Do you happen to know, by any chance?”(Salinger, 1951, p. 64) are the words of Holden Caulfield, a teenager going around the streets of New York on a random winter weekend. Holden has been kicked out of his school for failing almost all classes, so he decides to leave his dorm earlier than he was supposed to, and lets himself go deep into the night, with the wish to try and forget what he has to deal with in the upcoming days, which is to confess that he was kicked out of school for the fourth time.

Holden struggles with many mental health issues. He battles crippling anxiety, he finds himself very alienated from the rest of the world at many occasions, he finds no joy in life, he contemplates suicide, he has many undealt traumas lingering in the back of his mind showing themselves on many occasions, and he yearns for escape. The protagonist of the 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, Holden, was one of the first to represent a side of the human condition that had not been explored in fiction before. Even amongst his peers in the novel, Holden is the only one depicted to be battling severe mental health issues. The Salinger novel, although receiving mixed reviews in its inception, was one of the first works of fiction to bring into light the facets of adolescent mental suffering, and shed a light onto the inner workings of a teenager troubled by many facets of depression.

By any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over?

Holden and Catcher still resonate with teenagers today. Chen states: “Holden represents a social type of adolescents growing up in a corrupt and decadent world and serves [as] a mirror for his peers. There is a lot in him with which the young can identify. Much of Holden’s candid outlook on life, on people around him, on society is still relevant to the youth of today and contains a truth of an eternal nature” (Chen, 2009: 146). During recent times, the increasing alienation, feelings of hopelessness and sadness among school-going adolescents have given way to a rise in reported mental health issues amongst them, with a seriously concerning rise in the amount of teenage suicides. The American Psychological Association reports that between the years of 2000 to 2018 suicide rates among 10 to 24 year olds have risen from 6.8 to 10.7 per 100.000 (APA, 2023). An increase in substance abuse was also observed among similar age peers. In times where our awareness of mental health is increasing but our understanding isn’t, this paper suggests turning to different sources such as fiction, to get a clearer picture of the suffering many young people go through. The Catcher in the Rye will be depicted through 3 lenses of analysis concerning mental health issues, while drawing parallels into real world issues that have been observed and documented, demonstrating the ability of this modern novel to depict a subjective reality that is more in line with human truth than reality itself, through its in-depth search into the psyche of its protagonist, Holden Caulfield.

In line with the objective of this paper, it has been documented that fictional narratives have been increasingly used in the study of the ‘human condition’ by scholars and researchers alike, since it “gives access to the deeply personal experiences, perceptions, and struggles of individuals” (Kalkman, 2024: 1). Mar and Oatley state that: “Engaging in the simulative experiences of fiction literature can facilitate the understanding of others who are different from ourselves and can augment our capacity for empathy and social inference” (Mar & Oatley, 2008: 173). The novel can provide in depth accounts of the minds of its characters, displaying themes such as alienation and isolation, set against backdrops of realities that are in line with the current socio-political state of the world with an intention of displaying its absurdity. Through this, we can look at Catcher in its depiction of Holden Caulfield as a teenager struggling with mental health issues just as many in the world currently are, back to back to a world similar if not worse in terms of bleakness.

A past not confronted

The Catcher in the Rye is set in a United States where World War II has just ended, and the economy has been getting better since the 30’s, and politics have been moving towards the right in a contrastingly liberal but conservative scene. Holden is from a well-off family, he talks about his dad who is a corporate lawyer, and he admits to having ‘dough’. However, going against the more prevalent associations of money with happiness and comfort, right from the start Holden is contrasted against this belief, where Salinger brings out the nuanced characteristic of depression and other mental health issues. One of the first looks we get at the sources of Holden’s general discontent with life is when he shares the story of his own reaction to his brother Allie’s death, whom he loved and cared for very much, and shares happy memories of: “I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it. I even tried to break all the windows on the station wagon we had that summer, but my hand was already broken and everything by that time, and I couldn’t do it. It was a very stupid thing to do, I’ll admit, but I hardly didn’t even know I was doing it, and you didn’t know Allie” (p. 42). He feels guilty for being the one that lived instead of Allie, the brother he idolised for his intelligence, and he feels guilty for not being able to do anything to stop his death.

Holden was never able to process the emotional weight of his brother’s death, as Miller states: “Life stopped for Holden on July 18, 1946, the day his brother died of leukemia. Holden was then thirteen, and four years later—the time of the narrative—he is emotionally still at the same age, although he has matured into a gangly six-foot adolescent”(Miller, 1982: 129). This left him unable to process any association with death, and subsequently developing PTSD, shown in two of many examples. First is his constant recollections of his past stories that hold him prisoner, be it Allie’s death or the death of a classmate named James Castle, who died after jumping from the window as a result of ‘something repulsive’ wearing the turtleneck he lent him, which he confesses to popping up out of nowhere while he is thinking of happy memories (The Guest House, 2020). The second is his staunch opposition to the idea of cemeteries: “I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody” (Salinger, 1951, p.161-162). He cannot fathom the idea of the dead being kept materially intact under the ground, and he cannot stop thinking of Allie when he finds himself in one.

He pictures himself as the catcher in the rye: “Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around—nobody big, I mean—except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all”(Salinger, 1951, p. 179-180). This can be interpreted as him wanting to stop death, wanting to protect the innocence of little children (he displays interest in this many times, such as his scrubbing off swear words from school walls) and save himself the despair of being put in the position he currently is by doing so. His constant thinking of the deaths he has experienced has him subconsciously imagining worlds where he magically stops them from happening.

Unprocessed trauma in adolescents is one of the topics that doesn’t get much attention in popular discourse, either out of neglect or avoidance. Stories such as Holden Caulfield’s exist everywhere, and one of the main factors associated with PTSD in teens is the feeling of guilt (Astitene & Barkat, 2021). The concept of ‘feeling guilt’ is a vague one, but stories such as Holden Caulfield’s help our understanding of such feelings in the light of in-depth portrayal of the development of such feelings, and can enrich our responses in our efforts to help persons suffering as such. With the increasing amount of conflict in the world in the last years, many more adolescents will experience death, and will most likely be filled with feelings of (survivor’s) guilt and develop PTSD, and it is important we put emphasis on bettering our understanding of such mental health issues. Excluding such conflicts, Child Trauma Sherpa state that 60% of children and adolescents experience events such as death, crime, violence, and abuse, which is quite high and deserves more attention (Child Trauma Sherpa, 2023)

Alienated

Holden struggles to find a place in the world and yearns for a sense of belonging in the environments he navigates his life through. There are many instances of him feeling immensely lonesome, calling out and talking to his dead brother Allie. He thinks negatively of the world around him, and he deems most things phoney, they either depress him or make him angry. There are many instances of him interacting with people that he feels like he’s on different planets with, whether it be his old history teacher Mr. Spencer or his date Sally Hayes (Pandya, 2023). He is very distant from his parents, and rarely mentions them in a good light. He struggles to accept the love of others around him, particularly his sister Phoebe. He feels, in his guilt, he does not deserve such acts of love and offers of support directed at him, and he is trapped in his own feelings of alienation in a self reinforcing loop (Miller, 1982). 

His perception of the environment around him as “phoney” stems from many factors. One of them is his observation of the superficiality of humans, one he especially reinforces through their reactions at movies in contrast to their reactions to actual human beings. When he goes to see a picture, Holden talks of this woman and child he observes in there, which particularly highlights his distaste of the two-faced superficiality of adults and the rest of the world: “The part that got me was, there was a lady sitting next to me that cried all through the goddam picture. The phonier it got, the more she cried. You’d have thought she did it because she was kindhearted as hell, but I was sitting right next to her, and she wasn’t. She had this little kid with her that was bored as hell and had to go to the bathroom, but she wouldn’t take him. She kept telling him to sit still and behave himself. She was about as kindhearted as a goddam wolf. You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phoney stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they’re mean bastards at heart. I’m not kidding” (Salinger, 1951, p. 145).  

In line with this observation and many others, he also rejects the societal norms and values he is surrounded by: education, career success, material possessions and formal behaviour. He lives in New York City, which further distances him from the rest of society, where he is prone to observe, frequently, phoney and superficial behaviour that he views distastefully. Many of his interactions in New York City are with cold-hearted people that do not care to interact with him or each other. In his travels around the city, he feels very lonely, he has to call out to Allie not to let him disappear. He also feels alienated in school, and he only socialises with them out of need, while feeling like he doesn’t fit in that well.

Many students have confessed to feeling invisible, not cared for in the event of disappearance and misunderstood. A 2019 study finds that 88% of adolescents in India experience social alienation, caused by a multitude of factors (Navitha & Pettugani, 2019). Piore states that the United States has been experiencing a surge of increase in adolescent hopelessness, loneliness and alienation (Piore, 2022). In this article it is explained that the surge of social media and the evolution of the school system in America are blamed for the massive increases in mental health issues amongst adolescents, which while not being a prevalent topic in Catcher, it can still be viewed from the perspective of Holden, who finds his environment and the people he is surrounded by as ‘phoney’. This attitude can be included in further analysis in the form of adolescents that have differing perceptions of the world, even if they are not suffering from social media or the education system, they might be suffering from their rejection of accepted societal norms and values, superficialities such as material possessions and formalities, and differing valuations on education and success from what is expected of them. The need to conform to a norm is prevalent among adolescents as a cause of increased stress, anxiety and alienation, and it should certainly be included in such analyses concerning said topics (Clarity Clinic, 2020).

Anxiety 

Holden also suffers from anxiety, which is explained by his unprocessed trauma and emotional neglect from his parents, and he suffers from a panic attack in the novel. One of the facets of his anxiety is depicted by his obsession with what happens to the ducks in Central Park when it winter comes. In a world full of phonies and superficial adults, he doesn’t want to grow up, he doesn’t want to experience transition, he holds onto the childlike memory of the ducks in Central Park. He is unsure of his place in the world, he is lost morally and spiritually. His lack of purpose scares even himself. His focus on the ducks reveals his anxiety and curiosity on how he could endure the harsh winters of adulthood, like the ducks endure these harsh winters. The beginning part of the novel highlights his anxiety very well, where he forgets to take the equipment off the subway because he is so busy checking the map for the school fencing team he is taking to New York. He is so concerned about getting lost that he hyperfixates on it.

He reports suffering from nervousness 16 times, he says that his hair turned grey from stress, and there is a moment in the novel where, everytime he is crossing the road, as soon as he gets off the curb, he starts feeling like he will never make it to the end of the crossing (Kirshner, 2016). He smokes a lot, and he tries to get a drink wherever he can at any place he enters. He frequently indulges in acts of escapism, such as when he imagines himself as shot and bleeding to death when beat up by a pimp, in an effort to downplay the seriousness of his injuries and reduce his anxiety. Later on he develops elaborate fantasies of running away to the west, and building a life there. When he finds himself alone in the room with a naked prostitute, he feels more ‘depressed’ than sexy, as he finds it hard to find peace in his mind with someone he doesn’t know, and he is troubled by intrusive thoughts of death. He suffers physically from his anxiety quite often as well, frequently reporting to be suffering from “stomachache, nausea, and gastrointestinal problems” (Kirshner, 2016). “When I really worry about something, I don’t just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don’t go. I’m too worried to go. I don’t want to interrupt my worrying to go” (Salinger, 1951, p. 44) When he drops and breaks the record he got for his sister, he nearly cries, as his overstimulated mind cannot handle another act of disappointment.

Many teens report the same anxiety of not being able to imagine a place in the world for themselves. Hinsliff (2024) reports that more than half of British teenagers don’t think they’ll be better off than their parents at the age they are right now. This has led to many young people in the same situation as Holden is. With no clear goal in life, pursuing no form of education or employment, there is a huge group of 16 to 24 year olds classified as NEETs (not in education, employment or training) (Hinsliff, 2024). Forgoing future anxiety, 31.9% of adolescents in the U.S. are classified as suffering from general anxiety. The importance of the issue is getting deeper as years go by. 

Catcher draws a good picture of the solitude of anxiety. Holden feels completely alone in his troubles, with no way of getting out, with no supposed help to be offered to him. A critical look at Holden’s story might be a great indicator that may find the weights adolescents have to bear are quite hefty, and there should be better support systems established from parents and schools alike to not leave the adolescent feeling completely alone in the world. Especially after a life altering experience such as Covid-19 and the subsequent economic downturn, prospects for young adults seem bleaker and bleaker, and the least that can be done to combat any sort of anxiety is to share knowledge and offering to listen and help, rather than getting stuck in an idea that young adults should be ‘cast in the fire’ as ‘diamonds are made in the rough’. What Catcher helps us see here is the need for persons responsible to reach out rather than be reached out. Holden is never seen to admit to any issues, and he swallows everything he goes through. Imagine being a parent, if your kid seems unresponsive to a question like “What’s up?”, you should press on further with more elaborate questions about them, showing more engagement with their life and inquiring about possible areas of guidance they might require. The voice of suffering is quite often silent.

Conclusion

The dangerously relatable picture of Holden Caulfield in the novel Catcher in the Rye still continues to look newly taken. Timeless in its subject matter, Catcher can take you deep into the inner world of an adolescent punching way above his weight while drowning in a body of water with no shore in sight. One of the most impactful modern novels, Catcher displays the power of fiction to help process the human condition, make the alienated familiar and make loud the voices of silence in more insightful ways than perceived and assumed from media of its reputation. This paper aimed at showing the nuanced nature of Holden Caulfield’s troubles in relation to issues still tackled today. Holden’s sufferings from PTSD, alienation, anxiety, substance abuse, escapism and suicidal thoughts are valuable to enrich our modern understanding of adolescent suffering, and should be critically pondered upon further using the launchpoint provided in this paper.

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