Holden Caulfield Criticism

Keeping these things in mind, Holden Caulfield is presented much like the author. Caulfield has a very immature attitude that fall under the category of Ego-Defensive. The Ego-Defensive category has four subcategories within itself called; denial, repression, projective, and rationalization, that are labeled as defense mechanisms through psychological lenses. According to McGraw-Hill’s Dictionary of Modern Medicine, denial is the “primitive–ego defense–mechanism by which a person unconsciously negates the existence of a disease or other stress-producing reality in his environment, by disavowing thoughts, feelings, wishes, needs, or external reality factors that are consciously intolerable.” Holden presents his state of denial in the way he tries to maintain his relationship with his deceased brother, Allie.

Holden Caulfield justifies his violent outburst as it being an unconscious action, denying what is consciously intolerable. Projection is the following ego-defense mechanism, an unconscious defense mechanism by which an individual attributes his or her own unacceptable traits, ideas, or impulses to another, stated by Mosby’s Medical Dictionary. In The Catcher in the Rye. this mechanism is presented when Caulfield claims that, “All morons hate it when you call them a moron.” Because he himself can’t consciously accept himself, he unconsciously and rudely blames everyone else as ignorant. Then there is rationalization, the psychoanalytic defense mechanism through which irrational behavior, motives, or feelings are made to appear reasonable, states Falex Partner Medical Dictionary. An irrational behavior that Caulfield claims to have is in chapter six when he says, “When I really worry about something, I don't just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don't