Preview

How Is Holden Caulfield Depressed

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
287 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How Is Holden Caulfield Depressed
Holden gets depressed when Sunny takes off her dress because he realized that she was a child. He agreed to a prostitute because he was pressured and depressed so he thought he can blow off some steam using the prostitute. He changes his mind about having sex because the girl tells to stop and he doesnt know if he should continue or if he should stop. He stops most of the time.
Sunny's age, mannerisms and appearance affects Holden because he thinks she is young. Holden sees Sunny as a child and it ruins his mood about have sex.
He talks out loud to Aliie when he is very depressed about something. He remembers a story about Allie asking Holden to join him in a bike ride with Holden's friends to Lake Sedebego. He let him go with him, but one

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    For example, just as Holden came back from drinking at the Wicker Bar, he talked to Maurice, the elevator operator and agreed to pay Sunny, a prostitute for sex. After Holden makes the decision he comments, “It was against my principles and all, I was so depressed, I didn’t think” (91). Holden has an internal conflict; between narrator Holden and in the moment Holden. Holden’s internal conflict shows he made a life changing decision without thinking about the consequences till much later in life. Holden is a virgin, therefore if he had sex with Sunny it would be the first time he had sex. Holden is an unsympathetic character in this moment because sex is a very sensitive subject and Holden made a choice without thinking about the consequences. Therefore, readers have a lack of sympathy for Holden because Holden had to choice to respect himself but he chose not too. Another example is when Holden called Carl Luce, his former student advisor at Whooton school. Holden stayed late at the bar after Carl left. Then, Holden decided to walk to Central Park, “I walked all around the whole damn lake-I damn near fell in once, in fact” (154). The motif of falling displays Holden’s poor choice of drinking which could have been a life-changing moment. If Holden fell in the lake he would have died…

    • 1235 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    When he is with Sally Hayes, a girl who used to be his girlfriend, he starts talking to her about what he hates. Sally tells him not to shout, but he denies it. He is judging himself because he doesn’t believe that he is exadrating and shouting. Then he starts talking about other things that he hates, he keeps shouting and denying that he is shouting. Then Holden asks Sally if she wants to live in the woods with him. She says no and he states that she is making him depressed “I was getting depressed as hell again” (pg.133). But in reality he is making himself depressed by hanging on to the fact that she doesn’t want to live in the woods. When he goes to Mr. Spencer’s house, he comes in to the door and immediately starts hating on everything and getting depressed. But the only reason he went there was to feel happy and not get depressed “The minute I went in, I was sort of sorry I’d come. He was reading the Atlantic Monthly, and there were pills and medicine all over the place. And everything smelled like Vicks Nose Drops. It was pretty depressing.” (7) He makes himself feel like he does not deserve to be happy and that he needs to be depressed in order to be Holden, he cannot change himself at…

    • 1080 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When Holden first talks about his Brother Allie’s death, he starts to talk about how Allie was the nicest most intelligent one. He talks about how Allie’s baseball mitt “had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere” (38). Allie writing the poems on his glove so he has something to read in the outfield shows that Allie was just being a kid. He was being carefree; he wrote the poems on the glove so he would keep from being bored. Holden also thinks of Allie when Sonny leaves. He starts to think of a time when they were just kids when he would not let Allie come to Bobby Fallon’s house with him. Holden then starts to talk to Allie telling him to “get your bike and meet me in front of Bobby’s house” (99). He says that he thinks…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sexual relations appeal to Holden’s maturing mindset, yet he also finds these actions indecent. When Holden first arrives at the Edmont hotel, he looks out his window and watches the people on the other side of the building. He sees people partaking in odd activities such as cross dressing and couple squirting water on each other. Watching these people makes Holden think about his own sexual opinions and desires: “The thing is though, I…

    • 580 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Just like the lake in a midway transition, Holden is between childhood and adulthood, and cannot seem to let go of his younger years. This is regularly proven when something goes wrong and he does something more adult in Holden's mind view such as repaying the prostitute. After the events, he often thinks he deserved it or just wanted to end it all. It can be regularly seen when something does not go the way Holden intended, he will often verbally beat himself up about it which shows Holden does not have very good self-esteem at this age. Interestingly, Holden also mentions "I didn't give much of a damn any more if they caught me. I really didn't. I figured if they caught me, they caught me. I almost wished they did, in a way." This can be interpreted to mean perhaps Holden wanted to transition into adulthood, but the grief of Allie's death was holding him back too much. Although at the end of the book, Holden has a realization about adulthood. During the carousel scene with Pheobe, Holden realizes Instead, of trying to catch kids or his own self from going into adulthood, he should allow them to make their own mistakes. He says, “I was sort of afraid…but I didn’t say or do anything…If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them” (232). Comparatively, it took a while for Holden to come to this realization. Moreover, it also helped…

    • 1410 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden is constantly trying to surround himself with other people, but isn’t able to form real connections with anyone. Holden socializes with girls multiple times throughout the book. He makes an effort to engage in conversation with them, but they never seem to want to reach past small talk. This leaves Holden frustrated with the lack of connection made. Holden goes into a club with the hopes of drinking, but is not allowed due to lack of identification. He searches for girls, only to find a group of three who he does not like very much, but dances and flirts with them anyway. He tries to create conversation, only to deem them stupid as a result of their lack of interest in him. When Holden meets up with an old friend, Sally, he rants about New York and the phonies at his school, eventually digressing into a proposal to run away to different states. Sally rejects his proposal and tells him she does not see what he means with his ranting, and he begins hating her, even going on to tell her she gives him a pain in his ass. Holden thinks of the girls in the club as very stupid because he has to force the…

    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    He remembers Jane as a good girl who really wants true love. Stradlater braggs about his date with Jane and implies having such an encouter with her so that Holden developes emense frustration. Holden shares his thoughts with the reader away from Stradlater, "I kept thinking about Jane, and about Stradlater having a date with her and all. It made me so nervous I nearly went crazy"(34). When Holden stays the night at a hotel he agrees for Maurice, the elevator operator, to send a prostitute, Sunny, up to his room. Instead, he only wishes to talk with her and she reacts bitterly about the awkward incident and leaves. He reveals his sympathy for Sunny thinking to himself, "The trouble is i just didn't want to do it. I felt more depressed than sexy if you want to know the truth. She was depressing"(96). Holden makes it evident he longs to establish a personal connection…

    • 883 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Although she declines his offer it shows that Holden still has some growing to do to become an adult. After Holden hangs up on Faith, Holden goes down to Lavender Room in the hotel. He sits at the bar, but the bartender realizes that Holden is a minor and refuses to serve him. Although this seems small it has a greater meaning as the story purpose later on. After the bartender refuses to serve Holden he begins to flirt and dance with three older women. He begins to feel a sense of “Fake Love” with one of the women after he sees how well she dances. After Holden reveals to the women how old he is the three women leave making Holden responsible for the bill. Afterwards, Holden goes out to the lobby, he starts to think about Jane Gallagher and, in a flashback, recounts how he got to know her. This shows how Holden is reflecting upon things that he has done when he was a child. This shows how Holden is starting to understand that he is growing up. He begins to reminisce about his childhood and he begins to remember how he had meet Jane. He remembers how they played golf, checkers, and held hands at the movies. He remembers how one day when they were playing checkers and her father came on the ponch and when he left she began to start crying. Holden had moved to sit beside her and comfort her. This is a great example of how Holden really care about things even though he tries to hide it. He kissed her all over her face but, she wouldn’t let him…

    • 2510 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the many controversial scenes in the novel is when Holden encounters a prostitute. Holden pays Sunny, the prostitute, so he can have someone to talk to; however, when she begins to seduce him he tells her he cannot have sex with her to do a fake injury. Holden turns Sunny away because he fears he will lose his innocence. Controversy is prevalent in this scene because one of the overall themes of the novel is the loss of innocence. It is deemed inappropriate for a high school student to associate with a prostitute. This is why Holden being with a prostitute is extremely controversial. This theme is seen again in the novel when Holden speaks to Mrs. Morrow on the train.…

    • 603 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden is quite a peculiar kid. He tends to change his mind on a lot of things. However, the one thing he changes his mind about the most is whether he is ready to grow-up or not. Throughout the book he tries to do such adult like things, because he is sick of his usual life style. Then he gets sick of the unusual adult life. He talks to his sister, Phoebe, one night about the poem by Robert Burns, and Holden gets to thinking about innocence. How he wishes he could be the catcher in the rye. Stopping all the kids from losing that sight of innocence. He begins to regret all the adult things he did and wishes he could go back to the way his innocent childhood was.…

    • 802 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Catcher in the Rye

    • 708 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Holden meets Maurice who is a pimp. When they meet, Maurice immediately tells Holden he is lonely and needs to have some “fun.” Holden decides to take Maurice up on his offer thinking it will be good practice for him to be with a woman before he gets married. When the prostitute arrives at his room, Holden begins to judge her. He projected some of his feelings on her. He realized he did not want to have relations with her and decides to pay her but not have sex. When she asks for ten dollars, he insists that they agreed upon five dollars. Thinking that he just got out of trouble, Maurice comes in and starts to yell at Holden. While he was yelling, the prostitute takes the money. The reason that this had an effect on Holden’s personality later is he finally learns that bad stuff things sometimes happen and he needs to…

    • 708 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first cause of depression is losing family. Holden’s had lost his loving brother name Allie which made him study at another school. He got depressed when his friend did not allow him to sleep in the room which makes him depressed and get out Pencey at night to New York. Holden felt depressed when he knew his roommate date the girl…

    • 612 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden's loneliness and overall low self-esteem are the primary adolescent motivaters for his breakdown. Holden's general need for female companionship leads him to a reasonably accurate self-analysis: he thinks that he is the "biggest sex maniac you ever saw," but later admits that he really doesn't understand sex or know much about it. Holden, however, finds himself feeling rather "horny" and decides to call upon the service of Faith Cavendish. She "wasn't exactly a whore or anything but she didn't mind doing it once in a while..." Holden feels this experience will thrust him into what he considers the adult world. The conversation with Faith was a long one but inevitably led to nothing. An incursion into the adult world, or what Holden considers it to be, had been thwarted. In part, the failure happens because he doesn't really know the rules, and also because loneliness is not a substitute for experience.…

    • 877 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the reader finds themselves far into the book, they start to realize more about Holden and how innocent he can be. Holden calls a prostitute up to his hotel room because he finally wants to lose his virginity and become a man. When Holden is talking to Sunny who is the prostitute he blurts out that he is a virgin. “If you want to know the truth, I'm a virgin. I really am. I've had quite a few opportunities to lose my virginity and all, but I've never got around to it yet (Salinger 103).” After saying this the reader can truly see Holden’s innocence. Also another part of the book the reader can see how innocent Holden is, when he starts to talk about how much the Museum of Natural History means to him. “I get very happy when I think about the Museum of Natural History. Even now (Salinger 133).” Holden is overloaded with these nostalgia memories and innocent…

    • 761 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Throughout the novel Holden fights to protect his innocence from the cruel society around him that is just so… phony. He hates all of society for the phony things it does, he hates sex because that may make him feel that he too is apart of the adult life, and he hates change because change is just a recipe for a child to step into the new life, the older more mature life. The one that comes with responsibilities that Holden is not ready to…

    • 1574 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays