Understanding The Catcher in the Rye

What we take away from a book is a function of who we are, the sum of our life experiences--our world view. After two readings thirty years apart and a great deal of study and analysis, here are my insights.

The teenage years are when we reject our parents and look for answers outside the family/extended family circle of comfort and trust. They've lied to us about Santa Claus and the Boogey Man; what else have they been lying about? We've begun noticing their flaws and started looking elsewhere for answers. We want to be prepared for life, for making our own decisions. The hypocrisy (phoniness) within our formerly godlike inner circle of family has discredited them. Who can we trust? Where are the answers? And so today we pick up books like Dianetics and Atlas Shrugged and Hunger Games.

What I've not seen replicated elsewhere in literature is the concentrated depth and breadth of The Catcher in the Rye's socio-cultural footprint. Through the protagonist/narrator's interactions with a host of minor characters we are treated to slice after relentless slice of the world of an upper middle-class New York City teenager's life during the early 1950s.

Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and Homer's The Odyssey do something similar, but they're not as intense because they cover much more real estate. Catcher is only 220 pages. Instead of the usual linear plot line, all three of these books treat us to the adventures of a journey. It's the trip that's important, not the destination or goal.

Salinger throws us scene after scene of Holden's urban life in a near kaleidoscopic array of snapshots--current and former teachers, current and former classmates, his sister, flashbacks to his brothers and parents, cab drivers, girlfriends and former girlfriends, a teenage prostitute, doormen, chance meetings with tourists, nuns and some kids at the museum. With each engagement we learn something about Holden and we learn something about his urban life. We go to movies, a play, the park, the museum and a carnival. We ride a bus, a train, then a series of cabs with him. And we end up in a "rest home" with him.

Due to the limitations of first-person point of view there's a sparseness of literary tools such as simile, metaphor, lyricism, etc., but the reader is forced to buy into the character so quickly that literary trimmings don't matter. Were Scott Fitzgerald the author, we would be treated to brilliant descriptions of the glittering city lights and rhythms of the street. But we are in Holden's head, and he is in too much of a panic to notice much beyond his immediate crisis. 

Holden's the kind of guy that, if you met him on a bus you'd wonder what's wrong with him. Some people would move away, but I'd sit next to him and engage him in conversation. I would be curious what's wrong.

In rereading the book last fall I discovered that Holden seemed to be suffering from PTSD stemming from the death of his brother and from witnessing the suicide of a schoolmate, James Castle, who bailed out of an upstairs dorm window wearing the sweater Holden loaned him. I began noticing the symptoms of PTSD: depression, poor concentration, attention deficit, crying, rage, lack of motivation, self-isolation, sleeplessness, hyper-vigilance, etc. I'm intimately familiar with these symptoms because my own childhood trauma. I live with that same feeling Holden has of needing to protect children. 

To me Catcher is less about teenaged coming-of-age angst and more about a kid struggling against the downward spiral of mental illness. Without professional help he was doomed to submerge, and did.

Holden was barely "holdin' on."

There's a lot of cultural and psychological meat in there: a) how boys interact with each other when living in close quarters, b) particularly when two have or are dating the same girl and one feels protective of her (Jane Gallagher), c) how a sensitive boy might behave because of a deep emotional wound (e.g., the trauma of losing a younger brother and from witnessing the suicide of a classmate and d) how that boy might become neurotically protective toward his younger sister and toward children in general because of c).

Most teenagers aren't mature enough to comprehend the psychological ramifications of what I've just described unless they've been prepared for it by a mature adult who does comprehend. And there are many adults who couldn't.

Indeed, most adults have psychological defenses that don't allow even them to comprehend what I've just described. It is either too abstract, too complicated or too scary. I suspect this is the main reason the book is so controversial. Most people don't get it because they can't afford to, unless someone points the way or they experience PTSD first-hand.

Until you've been stung by a bee, "bee sting" is an abstract notion.

A greater sense of Holden Caufield through JD Salinger can be found in the film Finding Forester, which is purported to be based on Salinger's life. The film leads us to conclude that Forster's reclusiveness is rooted in the trauma of losing his beloved brother in a car crash.

In World War II, Salinger participated in tne Normandy Landing and Battle of the Bulge and other combat where his fellow troops were decimiated. He was among the first Allied forces to visit a German concentration camp. He was hospitalized for "battle fatigue." He understood the long term effects of trauma.

In a 1953 interview with a high-school newspaper, Salinger said that the novel was "sort of" autobiographical: "My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book ...it was a great relief telling people about it."

When writing the book, Salinger wouldn't have had a clue about PTSD, as it wasn't even in the diagnostic manual (DSM) for psychologists until decades later. He was just writing what he felt, blasting his feelings onto paper. 

Many people see Salinger as a sort of literary genius because he sold 70 million copies of one book. I'm not saying he wasn't talented and educated; he had plenty of both going for him. I'm saying he leveraged his talent on top of some inner need to get this desperate crisis part of his life onto paper and out of his head.

A great segment of the literary world has understandably attributed Holden's PTSD symptoms to teenage angst, but this is a gross oversimplification. It's his masterfully presented array of symptoms that's largely responsible for the success of the book. It's too complicated or too sensitive for English teachers to talk about mental illness; so they focus on the simple and more obvious interpretation. These teachers are missing a phenomenal opportunity to reach kids who are in crisis or know someone who is.

Bearing in mind that we're talking about a fictional character,  no one can actually diagnose Holden, but I have plenty of experience with the condition. I can spot symptoms in an instant. For example, a hyper-vigilant person likes to sit where he can see the door and with his back to a wall. He/she glances around constantly instead of holding a steady gaze while in conversation. I went through the book and itemized instances of the symptoms. Give it a shot and see if you don't reach a similar conclusion.

By wanting to save others Holden was saving himself and did so, with Phoebe's help. I see the the carousel is a metaphor for the connectedness of humanity. We see ourselves in others.

He was traumatized by the death of his brother Allie, sensitizing him to the reality of unjust death and suffering. It was personal, not just something he read about or saw in a movie.

In it's worst form PTSD originates not from a single event but from repeated trauma taking place over a period of time, months and years, as in military combat. There is a compounding effect. It can drive people crazy, make them want to commit suicide. And they sometimes do. Holden reacted voilently, breaking every window in the garage and breaking his hand in the process.

Holden had plenty of time to anticipate his beloved Allie's demise because it took place over a period of months during which he watched him deteriorate as the cancer worked its grotesque way through Allie's body. And the trauma built up in compounded layers.

Holden was in this highly sensitized state when James Castle threw himself out a dorm window, and the shock of it was too much, putting Holden into an emotional tailspin.

Innocent children were dying and it upset him, but he wasn't obsessed over protecting children's innocence; he didn't know what was wrong. He was just groping for answers, trying to regain control over his emotions, his life. 

He was lonely, depressed, sick and run-down. He had crying spells. He didn't know why and no one had any answers. He didn't understand why he couldn't concentrate on his studies and be motivated to do schoolwork. He was so distracted he even left the fencing gear on the train. He was so hyper-sensitive he exploded at the sexually experienced Stradlater over a girl they had both dated.

Holden felt lost and out of control, and his love of Phoebe and hers for him redeemed him, pulling him back from the potential disaster of running away and got him home where he would be safe.

Labels like "teenage angst" and "PTSD" can be dismissive and do not relieve readers from the duty to probe for meaning. Whatever the cause, Holden is a highly sensitive boy who's suffering and searching for relief.

No matter how hard an author tries to imbue his or her work with what is to the author a very important and obvious message about the human condition, he or she may fail simply because a reader lacks the capacity to comprehend it or misconstrues the story's basic truths. The Grapes of Wrath, for instance, was (and still is) attacked by wealthy corporate agricultural interests in California who refuse to accept it. I've heard one actually say that Steinbeck exaggerated the plight of the workers in order to sell books. It's human nature to believe what you need to believe, despite countervailing evidence.

CITR obviously meant something unusual to those two young men who had copies of the book when one killed John Lennon and the other shot President Reagan. Perhaps this meant they were looking for answers. Their value systems were running amok, and Holden's angst resonated with their sense of being lost and unable to cope with the phoniness of life.

Atlas Shrugged give a simple solution to all decisions, do only what is in your self interest. But that's in direct conflict what we are taught by most religions in the Judeo-Christian world, to do unto others as you would have done unto you and love thy neighbor as thyself. People who haven't yet learned to reconcile self interest with the common good can be thrown into mental conflict and feel angst. Maybe this is why some people don't like Holden/CITR; it doesn't offer answers. It just describes how it feels to be lost. It reminds them too much of themselves.

All that said, if you can enjoy Holden just as he is, without analyzing "every grey hair" (as someone put it) then by all means do so. But in case you want to go deeper, well here it is.

Update-The John Green Videos on Youtube:

Green is good, but he tends to regurgitate academia. Go straight to the book and pay attention to how it speaks to you. Wait a few years, then reread it. You'll be amazed at how the book seems to change. But it will be you that changes.

I don't agree, as Green alleges, that Holden was resisting adulthood. He embraced it. He did adult things, drinking and going to nightclubs and stage performances. He seems proud that he has a streak of grey hair and can pass for an adult. Seeking the company of a prostitute is adult behavior. He sought out adult company and conversation on the train and at the nightclub and with the nuns. He joked with kids at the museum. He was comfortable and confident with both children and adults. 

Green misinterprets Holden's comment at the museum that some things should  never change. Holden was talking about that deja vu feeling you get when you go to some familiar place after being away, like when you go away to college and return to the drive-in where you used to cruise. Or you visit the neighborhood you grew up in after moving away.

The diorama with the bare breasted squaw was a landmark for Holden as it is many New Yorkers to this day. It's like in Breakfast at Tiffany's when Holly Golightly goes to hang out in front of Tiffany's in the wee hours of the morning to cure "the mean reds." It was a place that made her feel secure.

We all have our favorite landmarks. That's what Holden was getting at. And yet Green cites it as evidence that Holden was resisting change, resisting maturity. It is a matter of interpretation.

Holden wanted to run away to a cabin in the woods. That' where Salinger lived, and died. Phoebe pulled him back from making what could have been a bad mistake with a lifetime of consequences. That's redemption, an adult concept.