A classic codependent is someone so emotionally entwined with an addict that she cannot extract herself from the chaos of his drug-induced lifestyle. His addictive erratic behavior harms not only himself, but her and others indirectly. Another type of codependent is someone whose life spins out of control because they are drawn irresistibly to the neediness of others, as seems to be the case with The Catcher in the Rye 's Holden Caulfield.
A close reading reveals ten instances in which Holden goes out on a limb for someone. The first is when he takes a swing at his prep school roommate, Stradlater, because he sees him as a sexual predator to Jane Gallagher, a vulnerable girl whom he knows well. Here are Holden's thoughts after he has been knocked flat and had his nose bloodied by the large and stronger athlete: "I just kept laying there on Ely's bed, thinking about Jane and all. It just drove me stark staring mad when I thought about her and Stradlater parked somewhere in that fat-assed Ed Banky's car. Every time I thought about it, I felt like jumping out the window. The thing is, you didn't know Stradlater. I knew him. Most guys at Pency just talked about having sexual intercourse with girls all the time--like Ackley, for instance-- but old Stradlater really did it. I was personally acquainted with at least two girls he gave the time to. That's the truth. ... I kept laying there in the dark anyway, though, trying not to think about old Jane and Stradlater in that goddam Ed Banky's car. But it was almost impossible. The trouble was, I knew that guy Stradlater's technique. ...I damn near puked listening to him. His date kept saying, 'No--please. Please, don't. Please.' But old Stradlater kept snowing her in his Abraham Lincoln, sincere voice, and finally there'd be this silence in the back of the car."
In the next instance, Holden lies consolingly to Mr. Spencer so this aging History teacher will not feel bad about flunking him: "I told him I was a real Moron, and all that stuff. I told him how I would have done exactly the same thing if I'd been in his place, and how most people didn't appreciate how tough it is being a teacher. That kind of stuff. The old bull. ...'Look, sir. Don't worry about me,' I said. 'I mean it. I'll be all right. I'm just going through a phase right now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?'
'I don't know boy. I don't know.'
I hate it when somebody answers that way. 'Sure. Sure, they do,' I said. 'I mean it, sir. Please don't worry about me.'"
Next, on a night train to the City Holden runs into to classmate Ernest Morrow's mother and concocts an elaborate lie about Ernest's friends wanting him to run for Class President. Holden's intent is to make her feel better about her horse's ass of a son: "'Ernest's father and I sometimes worry about him," she said. ..."He's a very sensitive boy. He's never really been a terribly good mixer with other boys. ...'
Sensitive. That killed me. That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a goddam toilet seat.
I gave her a good look. She didn't look like any dope to me. She looked like she might have a pretty damn good idea what a bastard she was the mother of. ...Mothers are all slightly insane. The thing is though, I liked old Morrow's mother. She was all right.
...'Old Ernie,' I said. 'He's one of the most popular boys at Pency. Did you know that?'
'No, I didn't.'
...I had her glued to her seat. You take somebody's mother, all they want to hear about is what a hot-shot their son is.
...'Did he tell you about the elections?" I asked her. 'The class elections?'
She shook her head. I had her in a trance , like. I really did.
'Well, a bunch of us wanted Ernie to be president of the class. I mean, he was the unanimous choice.'"
Holden next tells about playing checkers with Jane Gallagher when she became upset over a confrontation with her stepfather, and Holden overreacted. He describes his actions as almost involuntary: "Then all of a sudden, this tear plopped down on the checkerboard. On one of the red squares--boy, I can still see it. She just rubbed it into the board with her finger. I don't know why, but it bothered hell out of me. So what I did was, I went over and made her move over on the glider so that I could sit down next to her--I practically sat down in her lap, as a matter of fact. Then she really started to cry, and the next thing I knew, I was kissing her all over--anywhere--her eyes, her nose, her forehead, her eyebrows and all, her ears--her whole face except her mouth and all. She sort of wouldn't let me get to her mouth. Anyway, it was the closest we ever got to necking."
In a nightclub later Holden tells a group of tourist women from Seattle that they just missed Gary Cooper. It's a lie he tells so they will have something interesting to report back home. Holden even worries about the welfare of animals, repeatedly expressing concern over how the ducks in Central Park get by during winter. Holden offers some nuns an over-sized donation, which they gracefully turn down. He even changes his mind about having sex with the prostitute, Sunny, whom he sees as too young. They talk instead, even though she had taken off her dress.
The ninth example of Holden's codependent drive to help and protect others is when he confesses to his younger sister Phoebe what he wants to do with his life--to be a "Catcher in the Rye" and protect children from going over an imaginary cliff. Near the end of the book, Holden sits in the rain in his red "people-hunting" cap while he watches Phoebe ride the carousel. "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is playing in the background. The depth of his emotion shows how strongly he feels about seeing her safe and happy: "My hunting hat gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way, but I got soaked, anyway. I didn't care though. I felt so happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth. ...It was just that she looked so nice, the way she kept going around and around, in her blue coat and all."
It could be said that Holden is just a caring, kind person and these are all just examples of his compassionate nature. But if that were so, it wouldn't have put him in a mental hospital.
On the contrary, a case can be made that Holden became hypersensitized by the death from leukemia of his little brother, Ailee. The suicide of Holden's classmate James Castle deepened that sensitivity. Holden's unresolved grief sabotages his life, rendering him unable to function normally. He is highly intelligent, but he can't concentrate and repeatedly flunks out or drops out of school. Everywhere he turns he sees something wrong, making him anxious, confused, lonely. He cries and has feelings of bleeding from the gut. To make sense of his chaotic state of mind, he overreacts to everyday events, like meeting Earnest Morrow's mother on the train and concocting that elaborate lie.
Unresolved grief can be complicated and debilitating as we obsess over our relationship with the loved one who died. Guilt can arise over something we said or did or failed to apologize for to someone whose dearness we may never have acknowledged.
When we are emotionally intimate with someone over a period of years the shared experiences and feelings become a part of our identity, anchoring us in the swirl of life. The sudden loss of these identity reference points can shake us to our knees, and it can take a long time to recover--years. Codependency can be a coping mechanism whereby we mimic with strangers a ritual cascade of apologies for our imagined inadequacies toward the person we lost. On the outside we seem normal, but inside our skin we writhe in pain from an invisible unnamed source.
Compassion may be the highest human value, but some people get hooked on it like a drug. Codependency is the clinician's label for being too human, so attuned to others' pain that we spin out of orbit as our own needs go unattended.
The measure of Holden's emotional investment in Ailee and James Castle is the level of chaos in his life that surfaced in the wake of their passing. Like a junkie, Holden craved the good feelings that came when he did something that relieved or prevented suffering. It gave him a sense of control over his chaotic life and made his bad feelings go away for a while. But it was never enough. And we are left wondering whether Holden will spend the rest of his life playing God and trying to fix the world instead of taking care of himself.
A close reading reveals ten instances in which Holden goes out on a limb for someone. The first is when he takes a swing at his prep school roommate, Stradlater, because he sees him as a sexual predator to Jane Gallagher, a vulnerable girl whom he knows well. Here are Holden's thoughts after he has been knocked flat and had his nose bloodied by the large and stronger athlete: "I just kept laying there on Ely's bed, thinking about Jane and all. It just drove me stark staring mad when I thought about her and Stradlater parked somewhere in that fat-assed Ed Banky's car. Every time I thought about it, I felt like jumping out the window. The thing is, you didn't know Stradlater. I knew him. Most guys at Pency just talked about having sexual intercourse with girls all the time--like Ackley, for instance-- but old Stradlater really did it. I was personally acquainted with at least two girls he gave the time to. That's the truth. ... I kept laying there in the dark anyway, though, trying not to think about old Jane and Stradlater in that goddam Ed Banky's car. But it was almost impossible. The trouble was, I knew that guy Stradlater's technique. ...I damn near puked listening to him. His date kept saying, 'No--please. Please, don't. Please.' But old Stradlater kept snowing her in his Abraham Lincoln, sincere voice, and finally there'd be this silence in the back of the car."
In the next instance, Holden lies consolingly to Mr. Spencer so this aging History teacher will not feel bad about flunking him: "I told him I was a real Moron, and all that stuff. I told him how I would have done exactly the same thing if I'd been in his place, and how most people didn't appreciate how tough it is being a teacher. That kind of stuff. The old bull. ...'Look, sir. Don't worry about me,' I said. 'I mean it. I'll be all right. I'm just going through a phase right now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?'
'I don't know boy. I don't know.'
I hate it when somebody answers that way. 'Sure. Sure, they do,' I said. 'I mean it, sir. Please don't worry about me.'"
Next, on a night train to the City Holden runs into to classmate Ernest Morrow's mother and concocts an elaborate lie about Ernest's friends wanting him to run for Class President. Holden's intent is to make her feel better about her horse's ass of a son: "'Ernest's father and I sometimes worry about him," she said. ..."He's a very sensitive boy. He's never really been a terribly good mixer with other boys. ...'
Sensitive. That killed me. That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a goddam toilet seat.
I gave her a good look. She didn't look like any dope to me. She looked like she might have a pretty damn good idea what a bastard she was the mother of. ...Mothers are all slightly insane. The thing is though, I liked old Morrow's mother. She was all right.
...'Old Ernie,' I said. 'He's one of the most popular boys at Pency. Did you know that?'
'No, I didn't.'
...I had her glued to her seat. You take somebody's mother, all they want to hear about is what a hot-shot their son is.
...'Did he tell you about the elections?" I asked her. 'The class elections?'
She shook her head. I had her in a trance , like. I really did.
'Well, a bunch of us wanted Ernie to be president of the class. I mean, he was the unanimous choice.'"
Holden next tells about playing checkers with Jane Gallagher when she became upset over a confrontation with her stepfather, and Holden overreacted. He describes his actions as almost involuntary: "Then all of a sudden, this tear plopped down on the checkerboard. On one of the red squares--boy, I can still see it. She just rubbed it into the board with her finger. I don't know why, but it bothered hell out of me. So what I did was, I went over and made her move over on the glider so that I could sit down next to her--I practically sat down in her lap, as a matter of fact. Then she really started to cry, and the next thing I knew, I was kissing her all over--anywhere--her eyes, her nose, her forehead, her eyebrows and all, her ears--her whole face except her mouth and all. She sort of wouldn't let me get to her mouth. Anyway, it was the closest we ever got to necking."
In a nightclub later Holden tells a group of tourist women from Seattle that they just missed Gary Cooper. It's a lie he tells so they will have something interesting to report back home. Holden even worries about the welfare of animals, repeatedly expressing concern over how the ducks in Central Park get by during winter. Holden offers some nuns an over-sized donation, which they gracefully turn down. He even changes his mind about having sex with the prostitute, Sunny, whom he sees as too young. They talk instead, even though she had taken off her dress.
The ninth example of Holden's codependent drive to help and protect others is when he confesses to his younger sister Phoebe what he wants to do with his life--to be a "Catcher in the Rye" and protect children from going over an imaginary cliff. Near the end of the book, Holden sits in the rain in his red "people-hunting" cap while he watches Phoebe ride the carousel. "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is playing in the background. The depth of his emotion shows how strongly he feels about seeing her safe and happy: "My hunting hat gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way, but I got soaked, anyway. I didn't care though. I felt so happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth. ...It was just that she looked so nice, the way she kept going around and around, in her blue coat and all."
It could be said that Holden is just a caring, kind person and these are all just examples of his compassionate nature. But if that were so, it wouldn't have put him in a mental hospital.
On the contrary, a case can be made that Holden became hypersensitized by the death from leukemia of his little brother, Ailee. The suicide of Holden's classmate James Castle deepened that sensitivity. Holden's unresolved grief sabotages his life, rendering him unable to function normally. He is highly intelligent, but he can't concentrate and repeatedly flunks out or drops out of school. Everywhere he turns he sees something wrong, making him anxious, confused, lonely. He cries and has feelings of bleeding from the gut. To make sense of his chaotic state of mind, he overreacts to everyday events, like meeting Earnest Morrow's mother on the train and concocting that elaborate lie.
Unresolved grief can be complicated and debilitating as we obsess over our relationship with the loved one who died. Guilt can arise over something we said or did or failed to apologize for to someone whose dearness we may never have acknowledged.
When we are emotionally intimate with someone over a period of years the shared experiences and feelings become a part of our identity, anchoring us in the swirl of life. The sudden loss of these identity reference points can shake us to our knees, and it can take a long time to recover--years. Codependency can be a coping mechanism whereby we mimic with strangers a ritual cascade of apologies for our imagined inadequacies toward the person we lost. On the outside we seem normal, but inside our skin we writhe in pain from an invisible unnamed source.
Compassion may be the highest human value, but some people get hooked on it like a drug. Codependency is the clinician's label for being too human, so attuned to others' pain that we spin out of orbit as our own needs go unattended.
The measure of Holden's emotional investment in Ailee and James Castle is the level of chaos in his life that surfaced in the wake of their passing. Like a junkie, Holden craved the good feelings that came when he did something that relieved or prevented suffering. It gave him a sense of control over his chaotic life and made his bad feelings go away for a while. But it was never enough. And we are left wondering whether Holden will spend the rest of his life playing God and trying to fix the world instead of taking care of himself.
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