In The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield is a rebellious and angsty teen who suffers from internal and external conflict. Holden continously tries to create a conflict where there is none. However, after he creates these issues he is unwilling to face them. Holden’s internal conflict is his inability to accept responsibility for his actions, while his external conflict is the tension between him and anyone who succeeds. In this manner Holden continually pushes people away and refuses to accept the existence of these conflicts until the end of the novel.
Holden cannot handle accepting blame for his shortfalls. This is evident in the way he retells his story. Holden repeatedly tells the reader outrageous claims about his character. However when he ends up coming short on these expectations, he backtracks his previous statements in order to shift the blame away from himself. When he first discusses his fight with Stradlater he says, “All I know was I
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Throughout the story, Holden retells his relationship with D.B. In the beginning he describes him as, “being a prostitute”(Salinger 2). This is unexpected due to the fact that his brother is now a very successful screenwriter. Rather than showing support for his brother's new found success, Holden labels him as a phony. Similarly, when he is jealous of Stradlater's success with his love, Jane Gallagher, he immediately insults him and says, “all the athletic bastards stuck together. In every school I've gone to, all the athletic bastards stick together” (Salinger 24). This illustrates his need to destroy any relationship with anyone who succeeds. Earlier on in the text he describes how he looks up to Stradlater, but now he is generalizing him based off of other athletes. He goes far enough to call them “Bastards”. Holden has a “Me vs the World” mentality against anyone that succeeds causing him to push people out of his