Character analysis Holden Caulfield
Holden Cualfields is the main character in the novel The Catcher in the Rye. When the novel begins Holden is sixteen years old, six feet two and a half inches tall with poor health due to his overuse of cigarettes. From him being angry, anxious and depressed one minute to being thoughtful and kind the next, you could draw the conclusion that Holden is a complex human being.
The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Holden is that he is a pessimistic, negative and far from naive teenage boy. The outlook he has on life is pretty depressing and it is not often he is positive about things that happen. One thing that he does a lot is observing other people and his conclusion of people's personalities is that they most of the time are ”phony”, that being; boring, superficial or insecure. And if there
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Even though he has been through some not fun happenings in his life, I do not think that those happenings are the only things that have caused his negative and pessimistic state of mind. Holden might of had a mental disorder which the ending maybe indicate too, because he is at a mental institution. His mental disorder is probably the reason why his is so troubled, doesn’t manage to stay in schools and is unable to have any sort of relationship with anyone.
Holden is not able to cope with death very well and the thought of this dead brother lying six feet under in a cemetery, scares Holden. Even though a big amount of people are scared of death, which is understandable, Holden's ways of dealing with – avoiding it - is not ideal. At the Museum of Natural History there is a display in glass where there are people doing the same thing year after year. Holden uses this example to describe how he would want life to be - where beautiful moments would last