Holden's Personality In The Catcher In The Rye

In the Catcher in the Rye, Holden’s personality often inhibits his relationship with others. Throughout the novel he struggles with how to treat women and can’t really form an emotional connection with most of them. After leaving Pencey, he invites his friend, Sally, on a date. While talking to her on the phone he remarks, “She was always late. Then I hung up. She gave me a pain in the ass, but she was very good-looking” (58). When they end up going out together they get into an argument over their future and he ends up yelling at her and even calling her “a royal pain in the ass” to her face. His interactions and perception of Sally show that he struggles to form real emotional connection. Even on the phone he was complaining that he thought

Even before the argument it is obvious that he only sees her in a superficial light as the only reason he is interested in her is because she is attractive. Furthermore, Holden struggles to fit in at Pencey because he views all of his peers as phonies. He highly values innocence and can not see that in any of his classmates. This is partially hypocritical because as seen before he also sometimes makes decisions for the wrong, selfish reasons. These struggles are likely related to an undiagnosed mental illness, specifically depression. According to the Mayo Clinic, some of the symptoms for depression include, “Angry outbursts, irritability or frustration, even over small matters… feeling negative and worthless, anger, poor performance or poor attendance at school, feeling misunderstood and extremely sensitive, and avoidance of social interaction” (Mayo Clinic Staff). Holden fits a lot of these symptoms. He quickly got angry, dropped out of school, never really fit in with his peers and ultimately does not have many friends. This makes readers begin to sympathize with him because a lot of his negative traits could come from a mental