Catcher In The Rye PTSD

Improved Essays
PTSD is post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is when something traumatizing has happened if your life and you get anxiety over it and that's what you think about most of the time. The Catcher in the Rye was a novel by J.D. Salinger. In that novel there is an protagonist named Holden Caufield. Holden Caufield was a happy but that changed after his brother Allie died. Allie died on July 18, 1946 at age 11 of leukemia. After Allie’s death Holden became depressed. After Allie died, Holden was sent to a prep school name Pencey Prep. That school has its own dorms so he doesn't see his family a lot, not that Holden minded. He got into trouble a lot. He got kicked out out for failing four of his five classes. Holden then decided to stay in New York …show more content…
Some of the symptoms to PTSD are flashbacks, bad dreams, terrifying thoughts, feeling emotionally numb. PTSD is detected when a doctor who has experience on how to help people with mental illnesses. The person that is doing diagnosed with PTSD has to have some of the symptoms for it for at least 1 month. “Some of the risk factors of PTSD include seeing people hurt or killed, deal with extra stress after the event, such as loss of a loved one” (PTSD 4). In the Catcher in the Rye Holden experienced a loss of a loved one. He lost his little brother Allie. He was not diagnosed with PTSD because he his parents were never with him so they didn't know something was wrong with …show more content…
Once he got there, his little sister was there with him. When he asked her if he could borrow money she said he could have his christmas dough. He didn’t want to take her Christmas dough. So he said he couldn’t take her money. He didn’t have enough money to go to a hotel so he went to Mr. Antolini house. He left Holden crash at his house. There he had a dream that he wanted to be a catcher in the rye. he wanted to catch the little kids that were playing in the rye. The rye was too close to a cliff so he wanted to be able to catch them if any of them got to close to the edge. When he woke up Mr. Antolini was too close for comfort for Holden so he left. When he left he went back to his parent house and said he was leaving. Phoebe his sister said that she was going with him so that made him stay because he doesn’t want to take his innocence from her. He doesn’t want her to experience the real world yet (Salinger

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Holden often say in the novel there are many times his life changes around him. Change happens in everyone's life no matter how big or small it happened. “He got leukemia and died when we were up in Maine, on July 18, 1946. You'd have liked him. He was two years younger than I was, but he was about fifty times as intelligent.…

    • 848 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Painful Journey Into the Wild by John Krakauer and The Catcher in the Rye by D.J. Salinger are stories of opinionated, stubborn young men on introspective journeys provoked by feelings that they are unable to comprehend. The protagonists, Chris McCandless and Holden Caulfield, both travel nearly identical paths, though they have very unique idiosyncrasies. Both Chris McCandless and Holden Caulfield are linked by the unhealable wound archetype, and fueled by oppressed feelings of discontent and confusion towards their family members respectively. They channel their feelings inward, which pushes them towards searching for an escape, “in the wild”.…

    • 2317 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The death of his brother Allie has had a deleterious effect on Holden’s life. For example, when Holden was walking down the street he would say, “Every time I’d get to the end of a block I’d make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I’d say to him, ‘Allie, don’t let me disappear. Allie, don’t let me disappear. Allie, don’t let me disappear.…

    • 1412 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ is a 1951 novel written by J.D. Salinger. Set in the 1940’s, it is told from the point of view of a troubled teen, Holden Caulfield. It looks at his emotions and view of the world which show the reader his distressed nature. This novel focuses on the alienation of the main character, madness and mental illness, mortality and lies and Deceit. Despite Holden’s constant interaction with others throughout ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ it still seemed to me that, whether intentional or not, he was bringing his isolation upon himself.…

    • 119 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    PTSD may happen when a person comes across a terrifying situation that happened to themselves or someone close to them. For example, a woman who has lost his son named Joshua Omvig, three…

    • 1240 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Holden Caulfield Therapy

    • 1159 Words
    • 5 Pages

    He later goes to Central Park, and after that he risks going home because he wants to see his younger sister Phoebe and he suspects that his parents will be asleep. Holden is able to sneak into his family’s apartment and see Phoebe, who is ecstatic to see him. Although she is excited to see him, she states that their parents will kill him when they find out that he has been kicked out of another school. When Phoebe and Holden are talking, she asks him what he wants to be. He says that he imagines a giant field of rye on a giant cliff with children playing on it.…

    • 1159 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He was just in a physical fight with his roommate, and now just wants to disappear. I think we’ve all had that at some point or another. A little later they’ll read that Holden has made it to New York and is going out to meet a friend, Carl Luce, for drinks at a local bar. As he walks to the bar his mind races through old memories and of his older brother. He remembers D.B. telling him about his war experiences and how holden would never make it as a soldier.…

    • 1849 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Holden's Disillusionment

    • 1368 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Holden compares himself to other people and often sets unrealistic expectations on them, which explains why he gets depressed when people act phony. From Allie’s death, Holden realized that not everything in life is permanent and the change from childhood to adulthood is part of the reason why he rejects society. He doesn’t want to get too attached to anyone and then have to deal with losing him or her, like how Allie left him. Holden was very attached to Allie and to undergo this loss at the age of thirteen, evoked…

    • 1368 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    «Catcher in the rye had a profound impact on me – the idea that we all have lots of dreams that are slowly being chipped away as we grow up. »- Judd Nelson. The Catcher in the Rye is a captivating and astonishing novel written by J.D. Salinger in 1951. In the first few chapters, readers know that Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, is writting this book from the mental institution about his three life-changing days spent in New York after he was expelled from an elite private high school, Pencey Prep. Throughtout the novel, the main conflict that is hunting Holden is that one half of him desires to connect with people on the adult level and the other half despices the adult world for being «phony» and wants to live his life like when he was a child.…

    • 378 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Eventually he goes home with her, where he belongs. The title, The Catcher in the Rye, refers to Holden wanting to be a catcher in the rye. It shows his compassion for children. It hints that maybe he never grew up and is still in a childlike mentality. He wants to keep all children safe the way he could not protect Allie from dying, but he wants to protect all other children from that same fate.…

    • 852 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In J.D. Salinger's book, “Catcher and The Rye” the main character, Holden is a young man who has already had much to deal with in his life. After dropping out of his boarding school, he travels back home and begins to spiral into a breakdown. Holden’s infatuation with protecting childhood innocence stems from the loss of his brother, Allie. Not being able to fulfill his wants to keep everyone around him “innocent” contributes to his eventual breakdown. Holden becomes obsessed with protecting the innocence of those around him and he spirals into a mental break down we realizing that he cannot keep everyone innocent forever.…

    • 1011 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When kicked out of his boarding school, instead of maturely going home and explaining to his parents his expulsion, Holden roams New York City and avoids returning home. The entire novel is based on Holden’s regression. He was in complete denial of his expulsion and didn’t see why it was necessary to return home. Holden also reverts to younger behavior when he is upset. For example following Allie’s death, Holden went into his garage and destroyed it “I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it.…

    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Within Catcher in the Rye, without a doubt the theme of alienation is prominent throughout. The Webster dictionary defines alienation as “a withdrawing and separation of a person or persons affection from an object or position of former attachment”. This explanation helps the reader to set the scene for the novel and the isolated presence the main character Holden withholds throughout the course of the story. The negative energy Holden Caufield displays automatically at the beginning of the novel talking about his “lousy childhood”, lets the reader become aware that even as a child, Holden was depressed due to the death of Allie, his brother. This negativity the main character possesses, gives the reader a true insight into the inner pain he feels.…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Mesmerized by the internal need to preserve the innocence in the world around him, Holden ventures off on a life-changing journey to grasp the unattainable, the need to prevent children from maturing. With the unfortunate past events in his life guiding the way, Holden embarks on a mission to prove to the world that he can make his inflated dream a reality by protecting the youth from the impurities of adulthood. Being the catcher in the rye is more than just a job that Holden wants; it is the occupation he needs in his life to play his part. The heroic deeds Holden implicates into his voyage throughout the novel proves his valor, but he is stricken by an incognizant mentality, steering him away from his objective, and down the treacherous…

    • 2253 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, the source of all his feelings and actions was the death of his brother Allie. Allie died when he was young and Holden did not feel closure on his passing. Holden was a depressed adolescent and was running away from his problems and in denial of what what was sparking it. Holden left his school, his family and failed to make friends. He felt unable to connect to anyone, leaving him alone and isolated, wishing for his brother…

    • 616 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays