Examples Of Suicide In Catcher In The Rye

One can see this because he clearly states in the dialogue that he felt like jumping out the window. Holden’s mental state of mind can literally visualizes his own suicide and how and where it would take place. This quote represents the extent of Holden’s depression and loneliness and how much of it consumes him.

Holden is very impressionable, so when he saw “old James Castle lying right on the stone steps. he was dead, and his teeth, and blood, were all over the place. (Salinger 102)”, it puts the idea of suicide into his head. Holden then admits “he really felt like committing suicide”. He felt like jumping out the window.

Holden recognizes and perceives to be alienated from the adult world thus causing himself to believe he is depressed. Holden believes he is depressed from viewing the adult world and thinking that it is phony. He believes that the world is phony, superficial, hypocritical, and shallow. He views this world everyday and realizes that one day he will have to step into it, but every time he thinks about the world surrounding him it causes him to become depressed. Holden becomes depressed because he desires to remain a child were innocence is preserved and not drastically taken away. In Holden?s scenario, he feels that his innocence was taken away by witnessing the suicide of his close friend and the death of dear brother. Holden sees the world that he has to become a part of and desires more to not be a part of it. This hatred of stepping into the adult world causes Holden believe he is depressed and

Holden finds it almost normal to have recurring thoughts about suicide. Throughout the novel, Holden brings up scenarios of his defeat and even tells one of his schoolmates mothers that he has a brain tumor. This may be, because he thinks he’s better off with his brother, not forced to grow up in a society full of “phonies”. Holdens perception of adulthood makes him resilient to change, he’s focused on being real which in fact is sabotaging himself, by letting it control his life. He’s been negligent at school by not applying himself, failing classes, and ultimately getting kicked out of prep schools. Knowingly or not, Holden has been holding himself back, hoping to exempt himself from adulthood; which is not working in his favor as whether he accepts it or not, society will ultimately force him into adulthood. Holden experiences a push into adulthood with his encounter with Sunny the hooker. The encounter does not go as planned and once Holden dismisses Sunny, he becomes depressed, suicidal and turns to talking out loud to his dead brother Allie “I felt miserable. I felt depressed, you can’t imagine. What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud, to Allie” (Salinger 110). “Engaged in memories of Allie, lonely in his room, -so lonesome [... ] I almost wished I was dead" (p. 42), Holden sees himself in a Manhattan hotel room alone and overwhelmed in thought of -jumping out the window" ( p. 94).

Holden has experienced clusters of severe trauma throughout his entire life. His brother Allie died of Leukemia a few years ago and Holden was so upset that he punched all of the windows out in his garage that night. Neither Holden, nor his family have yet to deal with the loss of Allie, which clearly affected Holden very much. Also Holden was a witness to James Castle’s suicide at a private school that he once attended. James Castle had been bullied and could no longer handle the situation, so he resorted to suicide by hurling himself out of a building window and falling to his death. Although Holden was not incredibly close with James Castle, he was still affected deeply by the sight of the incident.

I felt so depressed, you can't imagine. What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud, to Allie. I do that sometimes when I get very depressed. I keep telling him to go home and get his bike and meet me in front of Bobby Fallon's house.”(Salinger) This quote clearly shows Holden isn’t over the death of his brother. He loved Allie and still, when he gets very depressed, talks to him. If Holden had received proper treatment earlier for his depression and was able to talk with someone about the death of his brother, he would most likely not failed out of numerous schools. He wasn’t failing; he was trying to cope.

Teenagers such as Holden who have thought of suicide do not desire to die but they want to escape from the problems in their life that at that particular moment the impression of dying was the only way out. Holden often lies to himself to ease the emptiness and guilt he is living with that even Holden himself tells us that he “really felt like, committing suicide” (104). Even if we did not have the evidence that Holden was depressed through his actions of lying and having suicidal thoughts we still have the profound statement of all. What other way to prove that Holden Caulfield is depressed then Holden himself announcing that life itself “makes (him) so depressed” (75). Every single page of the novel is gorged with Holden telling us he is depressed. Whether it was Holden remembering someone say please and Holden commenting “that’s depressing” (211) or Holden warning us to never sleep in Grand Central, because “it’ll depress you,” (194) it is obvious that Holden is suffering from a mental illness.

"Then I went over and lay down on Ely's bed. Boy, did I feel rotten. I felt so damn lonesome." (48) Clearly in that quote Holden has became depressed because he feels alone and isolated from the rest of the world. When he feels like that he often talks to people who he has annoyed him or is phony to him. He does not seem to care who they are, whether it be Ackley or his sister Phoebe he really just needs somebody's company when he feels lonely and depressed. Now you can tell that Holden is depressed.

While in New York, Holden contemplates killing himself multiple times. He always finds a reason not to go through with it though. “What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would've done it, too, if I'd been sure somebody'd cover me up as soon as I landed.

Holden is detached from responsibilities, and life in general. Holden does not apply himself in school and shows that in his note to his teacher in an essay, “It is all right with me if you flunk me though as I am flunking everything else except English anyway, Respectfully yours, Holden Caulfield (12).” The reason Holden does not care about school is because he does not care about his future, “Oh, I feel some concern for my future, all right. Sure. Sure, I do...But not too much, I guess. Not too much, I guess (14).” Holden is also detached from his family, specifically his father, and not having a loving father figure can affect a person, “You can hit my father over the head with a chair and he won't take up, but my mother, all you have to do to my mother is cough somewhere in Siberia and she'll hear you. She's nervous as hell (158).” The only meaningful relationship Holden has is with Phoebe. Holden can not confide with anybody except for Phoebe and even if there was someone else to confide with Holden doesn’t have the will to explain the problems that are occurring, “I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it (122).” Part of the treatment will be to help Holden to trust again. This trust will allow him to open up and not keep all of his problems to

Holden experiences extreme difficulty accepting his current realities and one of the main factors causing this is the lasting negative impact his brother Allies death had on his life. Firstly, when Holden decides to leave his school, he tells readers , “I don’t care if it’s a sad goodbye or a bad goodbye, but when I leave a place, I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse” (Salinger, 4). Holden’s need for closure is evident in this quote. When Allie died, it was very unexpected and he was not prepared to let him go, resulting in his denial that his brother is actually

Holden puts himself in isolation after Allie’s death. And he just kept isolating and isolating each time somebody else rejected his request to talk, for him to seek help. He shares at the end of the book that: "If you want to know the truth, I don't know what I think about it. I'm sorry I told so many people about it. About all I know is, I sort of miss everybody I told about. Even old Stradlater and Ackley, for instance. I think I even miss that goddam Maurice. It's funny. Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody” (234). Holden is damaged. He isolated himself so much he started to miss the people he was alienated from. But that’s the thing, Holden lives in 1951, feelings weren’t something you really talked about back then. Holden was forced to oppress himself, something he’ll later develop as his hatred for phony people because to Holden, all the phony people are the people shutting him and others up. One sign of Holden’s depression isolating himself is in chapter 20, "When I finally got down off the radiator and went out to the hat-check room, I was crying and all. I don't know why, but I was. I guess it was because I was feeling so damn depressed and lonesome. Then, when I went out to the checkroom... the hat-check girl was very nice... I sort of tried to make a date with her… She said she was old enough to be my mother and all” (169). Every time Holden makes an effort to reach out, he gets

Holden’s immaturity causes him many problems throughout the story. Although he is physically mature, he acts more like a child. “All of a sudden I

            Holden is quite skilled at citing exactly what is wrong with other people.  However he never acknowledges his own faults.  He was sure the entire world was out of step with him.  As Alan Stewart explains, ?Holden seemed to divide the world into two groups.  He was in one group, along with a few other people such as his little sister, Phoebe, and

Holden seems to struggle with depression. In many places throughout the novel, Holden describes to us his deep sadness. A lot of times his depression is unpredictable and triggered by tense situations. In one situation while he was explaining his feelings about the Elkton Hills headmaster’s phony and rather boring conversations with well-built and