Holden's Family Saved Him
Although we can’t diagnose a fictional character with a mental illness, there were signs throughout the Catcher in the Rye that Holden was sending a cry for help. Holden, in my opinion, was struggling with a mental illness that only became more evident, or worsened, throughout the book. As we got to know Holden, he seemed, to me at least, a major whiner that had difficulty applying himself to anything despite his underlying intelligence. What was fronting as the laziness of a classic teenage boy only wanting to mess around with girls and friends unraveled into an isolated kid attempting to sugar coat his competence in the world. Multiple times Holden called himself “Crazy” or a “Madman” but peeling back this layer of absurdity, he admitted his true emotions. Confiding in the readers, he “felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was dead,” (62). Sure, some kids in modern day will make jokes about wishing they died so they could avoid an exam, altho...