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How Does Holden Use Depression In Catcher In The Rye

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In the book, the Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, Salinger presents the protagonist and narrator Holden Caulfield as a young man stuck between the mental state of childhood and adulthood who is dealing with neglect, confusion, and depression. He is forced to endure anguishing life events that set his mental state into a spiral causing his mental stability to deteriorate significantly at a very young age. A way Salinger displays the concept of depression through Holden’s mindset is by fabricating him as an overly critical and fault-finding character in every environment he’s presented in. Ever since childhood, we learn Holden was a black sheep within the family; we assimilate and learn about his overachieving siblings and his exclusion …show more content…

It was late at night and as he headed into the city of New York encountering both familiar and unfamiliar aspects. During his stay there he hops around in hotels in an effort to avoid coming in contact with his disappointed neglectful parents. Holden is currently enraged and just wants to get away from everything but even in the state he is currently in, He does not stop the fault-finding habit he has integrated into his way of thinking. One of his first encounters was at the Edmont Hotel; he first came across the bellboy. His first view of him was, “... this very old guy around sixty-five. He was even more depressing than the room was….Anyway, what a gorgeous job for a guy around sixty-five years old. Carrying people's suitcases and waiting around for a tip. I suppose he wasn't too intelligent or anything…”(69). In this quote Holden is making a mental note of this bellboy, to him he appears like a depressing mindless old man waiting around for a tip from strangers. This is an important factor because it shows us a different side of Holden's fault-finding mindset. It teaches us how he does not need to be acquainted with the person to judge them, he can simply judge a person who is just lending him a hand and has no business with

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