Alienation as Self- Protection

Do you ever feel like you are a stranger in your own life or a stranger in the world? Well, that is

alienation. This is one of the omnipresent themes in the novel Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.

Catcher in the rye is one of J. D. Salinger's bestselling novels which astonished the literary world. The

story is narrated from Holden Caulfield's point of view, who is broadly observed as “…the original sullen

teenager” (National Public Radio, 2008). Cynical narrator, Holden Caulfield describes the readers about

few days of his life, where J. D. Salinger signifies his struggles with adolescent, academic life and

friendship. Holden Caulfield is an alienated character. He characterizes people as "phonies" to simply

bypass making a connection with them. This is the main cause of his alienation in the story. Holden

Caulfield believes that alienating himself from other is a form of self- protection because, he fears that

connecting with others will sooner or later damage him. Holden Caulfield escapes association with

others and dissociates himself away for protection simply because, he does not want to damage himself

when people disappear away from his life. This alienation eventually ends up destructing not only

Holden Caulfield but the people around him.

Firstly, As the story develops, the readers are able to comprehend Holden Caulfield's techniques

which he uses to alienate himself from others. For example, Holden Caulfield wears the red hunting hat

to express differentness to alienate himself from others. Alienation is the main cause of Holden

Caulfield's mental break down but he believes that it defends him from getting mentally injured. In the

novel, Holden states" don't ever tell anybody anything, if you do you start missing everybody"

(Salinger,234). This quote demonstrates how Holden Caulfield feel about associating with others. As the

readers read this quote, they are able to interpret that Holden Caulfield believes people are deceptive

and unreliable. He doesn’t not want to rely up on people or associate himself with people because

people disappear, people pass away. Holden does not recognize that alienating himself from others

absolutely injuring him mentally. It is evident that Holden is damaging himself by isolation in the
beginning of the book when Holden Caulfield states " Anyway, it was the Saturday of the football game.

[…] I remember around three o'clock that afternoon I was standing way the hell up on top of Thomsen

Hill. […] You could see the whole field from there, and you could see the two teams bashing each other

all over the place. […] You could hear them all yelling(Salinger,4). This piece of text from the novel

demonstrates how Holden Caulfield is alienating himself from other for his safety. He could easily be

down at the biggest game of the year but he decides to avoid connection with people. These types of

actions by Holden Caulfield leads to his loneliness "I felt so lonesome, all of sudden. I almost wished I

was dead. (Sallinger,54) and this loneliness leads to Holden Caulfield's biggest injury in the book which is

depression.

Furthermore, the readers detect how depression is affecting Holden Caulfield poorly.

"Aggression and withdrawal follow each other rapidly in the opening scenes... Since Allie’s death,

whenever Holden becomes depressed, he tries to make up for this past cruelty by saying that he may go

along. Here, then, in his guilt feelings we have an explanation of why Holden broke his hand against the

garage windows" (Carl F. Strauch, A Reading of Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye”). This text explains

how Holden was depressed after his beloved brother, Allie's death. He takes this depression out on

himself by breaking the garage windows. This eventually ends up hurting Holden Caulfield more as he

breaks his wrist. This justifies how alienation of Holden Caulfield leads to depression and depression

leads to more self-destruction.

Secondly, Holden Caulfield not only damages himself, he damages the people around him. The

most noticeable character that gets affected by Holden Caulfield in the novel Catcher in the Rye Is Sally

Hayes. Sally Hayes is an attractive girl that Holden Caulfield dated a long time ago. Holden looks at Sally

when she comes to the date and states "She looked terrific. She really did. She had on this black coat

and sort of a black beret. She hardly ever wore a hat, but that beret looked nice. The funny part is, I felt
like marrying her the minute I saw her. I'm crazy. I didn't even like her much, and yet all of a sudden, I

felt like I was in love with her and wanted to marry her. I swear to God I'm crazy. I admit it (Salinger

138.). This text demonstrates the amount of appreciation Holden Caulfield have towards Sally Hayes. As

the day goes on, Holden introduces the idea of running away to Massachusetts and Vermont to alienate

himself from the world (Salinger,146). Sally responses saying " you can't just do something like that"

(Salinger,147). Holden Caulfield doesn't appreciate and Holden "was beginning to hate her in a

way"(Salinger,147). Later, Holden Caulfield tells sally that she gives him a royal pain in the ass. This

upsets Sally and she begins to break down and cry. The readers are able to indicate how Holden

Caulfield pushing Sally away upsets her and damages her mentally. If Holden Caulfield associate himself

with people like Sally Hayes, he would in an excellent stage in life. "If he and Sally were married, Holden

knows he would be an office worker ‘making a lot of dough, and riding to work in... Madison Avenue

buses..."(Edgar Branch, American Quarterly IX). Edgar simply states that if Holden Caulfield connects

with people that Holden considers as "phony" Holden would be at an improved place in life and uses

sally as an example to support his idea. Holden isolates himself from sally instead of connecting with her

and it damages sally mentally and ruins their friendship which leads to Holden being lonely.

Lastly, Holden Caulfield affects his friendship with Jane by never calling her because he is simply too

afraid of rejection and alienating himself as a self-protection. This technically affects Jane because,

Holden ends their friendship by not even attempting to call Jane. "Among the girls of his acquaintance

only Jane Gallagher has the inherent prerequisites for a genuine partnership" (Hans Bungert, The

Isolated Youth and His Struggle to Communicate). Hans describes Jane as the only girl in the novel who

has the promising abilities to create a partnership with Holden. It is very rare that we see character that

Holden would like to associate with in the novel. Even with Jane, he isolates him-self thinking he is

protecting himself but in reality, he is actually, hurting himself. "I held hands with her all the time, for

instance. That doesn't sound like much, I realize, but she was terrific to hold hands with. We'd get into a
goddam movie or something, and right away we'd start holding hands, and we wouldn't quit till the

movie was over. And without changing the position or making a big deal out of it. You never even

worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy. You really

were". This quote shows how Holden was happy when he was with Jane. When he does not isolate

himself from others and makes connection with others you can tell that Holden doesn’t damage himself

mentally. This piece of text also proves how close Jane and Holden were at one point of time. Holden

simply not wanting to call Jane because he believes that isolating himself from others is good for him is

absolutely wrong and it ends up hurting him mentally.

Overall, the novel Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger explores the cynical narrator Holden

Caulfield who escapes association with others and dissociates himself away for protection simply

because, he does not want to damage himself when people disappear away from his life. This alienation

eventually ends up destructing not only Holden Caulfield but the people around him. This could be

argued with the fact that Holden hurts himself when he isolates himself from others, Holden damages

Sally Hayes when he isolates himself from her and lastly, he hurts Jane by not trying to contact with her

and also by simply ruining their long friendship. Holden isolate himself from others to be safe because

he does not rely on people and he thinks that people are deceptive. This is mainly caused by his brother,

Allies death. Losing a family member can make you alienate yourself from society.
 Work cited list

 Carl F. Strauch “Kings in the Back Row: Meaning Through Structure, A Reading of Salinger’s The

Catcher in the Rye” Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature II (Winter 1961) 5-30

 Edgar Branch “Mark Twain and J. D. Salinger: A Study in Literary Continuity” American Quarterly

IX (Summer 1957) 144-58

 Hans Bungert “Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye: The Isolated Youth and His Struggle to

Communicate” Die Neueren Sprachen (1960) 208-17

 Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Sterling Pub Co Inc, 2014.