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Catcher In The Rye: Borderline Personality Disorder

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(H) Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) affects 14 million Americans at sometime in their lives and left untreated can completely take over your life (NEA, 2013). In J.D Salinger’s masterpiece The Catcher in the Rye the main character Holden Caulfield suffers from this very disorder. (Thesis) The very reason Holden can’t keep or obtain a relationship is because of his Borderline Personality Disorder. (B1) Holden is constantly involved in impulsive and self destructive behavior as a result of BPD which prevents him from gaining and maintaining relationships. (B2) The rage and mood swings that go along with the disorder ruined his relationship with Sally. (B3) As a result or BPD Holden has a disconnect with reality which renders him incapable …show more content…

(E1) BPD manifests itself during the mid to late teenage years which is what Holden is going through at the time the book takes place, and one of the most dominating symptomes is delusion (NEA, 2013). (P1) Everyone he meets or knows in highschool is a “phony” like Stradlatter. A quote from Holden was that “A million reason why it [Pencey] was one of the worst schools I ever went to. It was full of phonies” (Salinger, 1951 insert page) and it’s because his disorder didn’t start to manifest itself until his teens so in his delusional mind they are all fake so he doesn’t try to connect with them. The only real and true people in his life are the ones he’s known since before the BPD like Phoebe, Jane or Allie (Salinger, 1951). (E2) Holden refuses to maintain relationships with the people his mind sees as phony and his mind twists situations into something they are not. (P2) An example of this would be Mr. Antolini, he mistook his innocent gesture as being totally perverted and homosexual so he calls him the biggest phony of all when Antolini was trying to do was care for and be nice to someone who was clearly in need (Salinger, 1951). (E3) Holden’s delusion about how close him and Jane actually were is the reason that they don’t talk anymore. (P1) When talking about the fight that Jane had with her step father had when she cried Holden said that she wouldn’t let him kiss her on the lips which to me seems like she didn’t want to kiss him because she wasn’t interested in him. Alson Holder has proven to be an unreliable narrator even saying at one point saying he’s “The most terrific liar you ever saw in your life” (Salinger, 1951 insert page number) which means that everything he said about Jane and him holding hands or even playing cards needs to be taken with a grain of salt. (Trans) Holden’s life as we can see has been a series of

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