Holden's Childhood Trauma

In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger illustrates how children mature through their exposure to trauma.
Salinger uses character interactions to show the effects of a child's mindset when experiencing childhood trauma. Holden experiments with many different illegal activities including drugs and alcohol, which connects back to his childhood home experience. Holden grew up in a very intense childhood home situation. Holden used to hold his breath and walk very slowly because of the fear he had of his mother, because of her heavy evening smoking issue. Earlier in this scene, Stradlater (Holden's roommate) returns home after going on a date with Holden's childhood romance, Jane Gallager. Stradlater’s actions force Holden to become so frustrated

Holden’s growing up seeing irresponsible drug use, affected the normalization of it which affected his use of drugs as he matured. Seeing these actions by his mother daily enforced this trauma upon him. This shows how his mothers drug addiction, in his childhood home, affected Holden to normalize this idea while maturing through his life. Salinger expresses how childhood trauma affects Holden's mindset when growing up through his character interactions in more ways than one. When faced with intimate situations and sexual interactions among women, Holden becomes frightened. Holden's little brother, Allie, passed because of leukemia at the age of 11 years old. Holden, at the age of 13 years old, struggled to cope with this traumatic experience. In this scene, Holden invited a loose woman, Sunny, over to his hotel room after meeting her manager in the elevator. Holden wanted to get intimate interactions with Sunny until she actually tried to do excessive physical contact. Holden declares, “I don't feel very much like myself tonight...I'll pay you and all, but do you mind very much if we don't do it"

When staring at a frequently visited museum by Holden as a child, he remembers his past experiences connecting back to his childhood trauma. Earlier in this scene, Holden goes to look for Sally when he encounters young boys who direct him towards the museum. Holden then starts to inform us that he used to visit here, and how he remembered certain factors. Holden remembers certain aspects of these museums like the flooring and a huge important idea, that nothing moves. Holden says, "The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move" (Salinger 135). Salinger uses this idea of stillness to show how Holden lives in the past. As mentioned earlier, Holden's brother tragically died at a young age affecting Holdens ideas of the world. This symbol of the museum shows how Holden does not want time to move. Holden wishes everything froze in its place so nothing would change. This relates back to the idea of Holden's innocence and how it affected his development. Holden can not stop thinking about the death of Allie wishing everything would stop moving showing he does not want to grow up. This remembrance of his childhood trauma affected his development of not wanting to mature during freezing time. Salinger describes how childhood trauma affects Holden's mindset when growing up through his symbolization in more ways than one.