Essay On Depression In Catcher In The Rye

Depression in adolescents is a major mental health problem that causes a constant or reappearing feeling of sadness and loss of interest to do anything. It's a serious issue that can leave people, or adolescents specifically, feeling hopeless and like they have no purpose; in some cases it can lead to suicide. Depression can manifest in adolescents because of a chemical imbalance in the brain, genetics, hormones, or the environment ("Teen Depression"). In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, gets kicked out of his private school for failing and proceeds to take a three-day-long trip in New York City. During Holden’s journey, he deals with the loss of his brother, Allie, and his deteriorating

If depression is left untreated, it can proceed to get worse and lead to suicide ("Teen Depression"). When a person is depressed for a long time it can lead to them having the desire of ending their own life. As it gets worse people feel like there's no point in living anymore because they believe that their life won't get any better. So in the end, they think the best solution is suicide. Holden got into a physical altercation with his Pencey dorm roommate at the time, Ward Stradlater, "He was probably scared he'd fractured my skull or something when I hit the floor. It's too bad I didn't" (Salinger 51). Holden has had suicidal thoughts since the beginning of the novel. During the physical altercation with Stradlater, Holden's head gets hit against the floor. While Stradlater is worried that he accidentally damaged Holden's head very badly, Holden on the other hand wished he had. If his head got damaged very badly then Holden could've possibly died, which is what Holden was hoping for. After Holden has another physical altercation with someone at the hotel he was staying at, he went into the bathroom and thought, “What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window” (Salinger 116-117). As the novel continues, Holden still expresses his desire to end his life. Only this time, Holden outright says that he felt like committing suicide. He never did, but if his life continued

Adolescents with troubling mental health sometimes reach for alcohol as a solution, alcoholism makes a high appearance in someone with depression (Lim and Myoungjin). When someone experiences depression, they might start drinking alcohol, as they believe it might be a way to "help" them, or in some ways numb the pain. It's very likely for a person to be an alcoholic when they have depression, since they correlate with one another. Even though people believe the alcohol will help them, when instead it actually deteriorates their physical and mental health even more. Holden is walking around New York City heading to the bar, thinking, "I can drink all night and not even show it, if I’m in the mood" (Salinger 101). Holden has had alcohol before, even though he's underage, he's able to have a lot of it and no one would even know it. Holden expresses this information, which makes it obvious that he's done this before to know this theory. When he states about being in the mood for it, it probably correlates that he'll usually drink the most when he's feeling depressed. Throughout his last night in New York City after his outing at the bar, Holden would say repeatedly, “Boy, was I drunk” (Salinger 166). Holden throughout the novel would say how he'd want to go get a drink with someone or just wanted to go out drinking in general. Once Holden ended up getting drunk, he'd repeatedly say that he was drunk and on how drunk he was.