Caulfield In J. D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye

Holden Caulfield uses the word "goddamn" 345 times, "phony" 35 times, and also uses "crazy" 77 times. Holden throughout J.D Salinger's Catcher in the Rye portrays to others as an unusual, cynical, and someone who perhaps has a bit of a shocking mouth, but maybe Holden actually has a more innocent and childlike side to him that nobody seems to distinguish him by. Maybe there is a reason why he has such a cynical and hostile attitude to everything in society. It is apparent that he has experienced the death of his brother Allie, but maybe he is hiding something from the reader. Holden shows consistent signs of going through the various stages of grief proposed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross including mostly unprovoked anger, random depression, and

In fact, he shows anger right after Allie dies and injures himself in the process: “I was only thirteen…the night he died…I broke all the goddamn windows with my fist” (Salinger 44). Although he does not release his rage directly it can be seen that he may be trying to hide from the reader that he was angry since he broke the windows in a fit of uncontrollable anger when Allie died. He was his dear brother and he loved him a lot, it hit Holden hard when he suddenly died of leukemia causing him to resort to anger in order to release his emotions. In addition, he ends up releasing his emotions on Stradlater the night he left Pencey when he “tried to sock him, with all my might, right smack in the toothbrush…Only I missed.” (Salinger 49). Caulfield constantly talks about Jane Gallagher in the book, it is apparent that he holds her as a special friend, perhaps reminding Holden of his brother. It scared Holden to think that Stradlater had sexual intercourse in the car since that would mean she lost her innocence from childhood and is no longer his special friend that he remembers, he wants to have someone in his life who still reminds him of his innocent little brother so that he has something to remember him by physically and emotionally. Finally, at any chance Holden gets, he will proceed to make cynical comments directed at

For example, he tells the reader this when he hired the prostitute saying that he “felt much more depressed than sexy” (Salinger 95). Again, it is seen that he values innocence and childlike qualities when he is attempting to make an emotional connection. The prostitute is described as young and Holden seems to have trouble comprehending that something that should be innocent is in fact not innocent which end up depressing him because more young-like people are supposed have more innocent qualities rather than doing something that is not innocent as in Sunny's case: prostitution. In like manner, Holden admits he is depressed at random times, whether it would on the street, or whether he sees someone going to a movie: “but when somebody really wants to go and even walks fast as so to get there quicker, then it depresses the hell out of me” (Salinger 116). In this case, Holden is referring to his other brother D.B (who is alive). Holden likes D.B, but finds it unsettling that he makes so much money in Hollywood writing his stories there, he finds Hollywood not innocent and connects the movies with his brother making a lot of money up in Hollywood which ends up depressing him when he sees people wanting to go to the movies. To summarize, not seeing any innocence in something can make Holden sad rather than angry