Chaos Of Holden's Thinking In Catcher In The Rye

If anyone had ever asked Holden the classic, "a penny for your thoughts?", you're liable to get an answer that was all over the place, that you couldn't understand and if you asked him to explain, he wouldn't have a clue either. Classic Holden. However, Holden’s thinking is organized in a very distinct way. Holden not only acts like a child but thinks like one too, and it makes his psyche easier to decipher. Much like a child, Holden finds solace in adventuring through things out of the ordinary and then noticing every little thing along the way. Holden also is free in his thinking and judgement of other people. These traits create an image that contributes to them understanding of the chaos of trivialities that is Holden's thoughts

For example, he says to Sally, “How would you like to get the hell out of here?...I was getting excited as hell…I sort of reached over and took old Sally’s goddam hand…,”(146). This illustrates Holden’s spontaneous childish moments influencing his thoughts and actions. Contrarily to his previous excitement, in a show of anger after Sally denotes his idea causing Holden to feel angry, he calls her “a royal pain in the ass.” Immediately after this occurrence, Holden regrets speaking to her in that way claiming that he “meant it” when he asked her to run off with him. He even declares himself a madman for his lack of being able to comprehend his own thought patterns as well as because of Sally’s inability to understand him. This event is an example of Holden’s spontaneous ideas inflicting one of his infamous moments of depression and

Therefore, when Holden is attempting to act mature it only appears as if he is painting a caricature of an adult through a child’s eyes, mostly mimicking and adult’s mannerisms. As he is exploring like a child, he creates a facade to suit his beliefs that everyone expects him to act like an adult. “I ordered a scotch and soda and told him not to mix it…,”(78). Here, Holden is ordering an alcoholic beverage with the idea that he is mature enough to. So it comes as a shock to him when the waiter recognizes him as a minor and refuses to serve it to him without identification. Holden continues to play it off and pretends that the waiter had “insulted the hell” out of him and replies, “ Do I look like I’m under twenty-one?”(78). Holden also expresses his need for adventure to distract from his depression when he “goes against his principles” and hires Sunny and even comments that, “When you’re feeling very depressed, you can’t even think, ”(102). After hiring Sunny he finds that it was not a scenario he wanted to be in and attempted to pay her to have a conversation with him, for he was so lonely. Holden often makes decisions out of the ordinary and as a result, it creates a situations that he either can’t handle or puts him