Holden's spiritual Journey in the Catcher in the Rye

Authors Avatar

HOLDEN CAULFIELD’S ODYSSEY OF SELF DISCOVERY

        What is it that defines the infamous teenage years that everyone at one point or another goes through?  Is it all the struggle of trying to break through the crowd or the stress of facing the endless conflicts that didn’t exist when you were a child?  Maybe it’s the pain of shedding the protective cocoon called childhood, to face your deepest fears and understand that all those simple truths might not be so simple.  At the other end of these terrible years filled with confusion and tears is light.  Every child comes through as an individual with a better idea of his or her self and place in society.  In J.D Salinger’s coming of age novel The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist Holden Caulfield embarks on a spiritual journey, during which he comes to terms with himself and the world.

        In the opening chapters of the novel, one can easily suspect that Caulfield is psychologically ill, judging by his cynical tone, hypocritical behavior and immature views. His constant criticism of society’s phoniness displays his cynical views; and when he bluntly lies to his fellow classmate’s mother about her son during a train to New York, he reveals his own hypocrisy as a phony.  Another trait visible from Holden’s narration is the immaturity in understanding change, which is obvious from the way his thoughts are constantly revolving around preservation such as his school essay about Egyptian mummies.  Over the course of his odyssey, Holden becomes enlightened to the idea that there may indeed be a problem with his emotional health and at the end of the novel, pursues counseling to help him deal with his troubles.  Holden hints that the source of his mental trauma is related to his inability to cope with the death of his only brother, Allie.  Though he never affirms this as the direct cause of his insanity, he manages to acknowledge his instable behavior only started after Allie’s death; such as smashing all the windows. He makes this connection through the words “I broke all the goddam windows with my fist the night he died… 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.”   Throughout his journey, Holden faces various experiences which help him overcome his inability to accept change and learn to stop fighting desultory battles, as well as helping him understand that the society is not against him and he is part of the society.

Join now!

One of the most severe internal conflicts Holden overcomes is his incapacity to accept change.  It’s clear to read that Holden has trouble in both the physical and emotional aspect of change; he wants to prevent death, which he views as when a subject vanishes from view, as well as to prevent maturing emotionally to deal with more complex emotions.  His relation to preserving things becomes clear in his child-like concern to save the ducks in the pond during winter, his trouble over being unable to stop the record from falling and breaking and his interest in being frozen in ...

This is a preview of the whole essay