Catcher I Nthe Rye

The story Catcher In The Rye takes us on a journey to see the life of Holden Caulfield. From being moved around, to loosing his brother Allie, Holden has been on a on going battle to deal with society and himself as well. In the story we see that Holden is struggling from a day to day bases to keep himself sane. We come to realize soon that he has a great number of conflict, when it comes to certain individuals in his life. Being in an institute, all that we can conclude is that he is "sick'. But now it is our turn, and what I believe is because of his anger outrages, ability to lie about everything, and having suicidal thoughts, I believe Holden should be diagnosed with self depression. To start off, holden seems to let his anger outrages get the best of him. For example, later in the book him and spencer get into an altercation. In my opinion this show Holden has a low temperment and needs to be dealt with. Anothe example is Holden is mad at stradlater because he complained about the paper holden wrote and he was upset when he told stradlater to tell jane if she kept all her kings in the back row. ) "Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.": Mr. Spencer in chapter 2. This quote is ironic since Holden never believes that life is a game. In fact, he believes the opposite-- he is deathly serious about life, and he doesn't accept the rules set before him by phony adults.

2) "Ask her if she still keeps all her kings in the back row.": Holden in chapter 4. This quote demonstrates Holden's child-like nature. Though he's a seventeen-year-old in high school he is still captivated by early memories.

3) "For Chrissake, Holden. This is about a goddam baseball glove.": Stradlater in chapter 6. Here, Stradlater rejects more than Holden's paper, but he also unknowingly rejects Allie. This hurts Holden deeply, contributing to his self-frustration and alienation from society.

4) "Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad." This shows not only Holden's personal frustration but also his overwhelming inferiority complex. He feels guilty when anyone offers something of value to him without his payment.

5) "My brother D.B.'s a writer and all, and my brother Allie, the one that died, that I told you about, was a wizard. I'm the only really dumb one.": Holden in chapter 10. Again this shows his lack of self confidence and feeling that he's a failure to his family.

6) "Then she really started to cry, and the next thing I knew, I was kissing her all over...": Holden in chapter 11. Here Salinger suggests that Holden has no control over his body; it seems to move itself. This also suggests that Holden has no control over his world. Although he wants to protect the child-like innocence that he's already lost, he finds it almost impossible in such a large