“I Give Up; He’s Crazy”:

One Man’s Struggle Against the Madness

Nick Van Baak

AP Lang & Comp 2

Mr. Norris

7 March 2011
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This—this kid—he’s too much. I swear I’m godda—er, I mean I’m losing it. I really

am. You see, the kid, name’s Holden, came here a few weeks ago and they assigned me to work

with him. Normally I do well with the basket cases, but Holden was different. For one, he went

and wrote a book about his life and it became a bestseller. I think his brother helped. But then

all these other psychoanalysts went and wrote papers on him and messed up my case study. And

Holden himself—well, he just depresses me. It’s only a matter of time before they have to get

another psychoanalyst, and I don’t know whether he’ll be treating me or Holden. I don’t even

know what his problem is anymore. Holden’s, that is. The critics—his book had critics! Just

like that!—seem convinced that he’s just troubled by society and innocence, whereas I’m pretty

godd—um, I mean darn—sure that he’s just suffering from severe depression and possibly

insanity.

This guy named “Salinger” keeps coming up, and I’m not sure what the deal is with him,

but the critics are pretty sure he was behind everything all along to critique our society. Who is

Salinger? What does he want? And why can no one agree on the previous answer!? One writer,

who claims to be “Arthur Heiserman,” puts Holden’s behaviors down to a sort of “heroism” in

which Holden is trying to be good in an essentially bad society. This goodness is apparently

derived from childhood innocence, which “Heiserman” claims Holden “can find now only in

Phoebe and in his dead brother Allie's baseball mitt . . . Still, unlike all of us, Holden refuses to

compromise with adulthood and its necessary adulteries; and his heroism drives him berserk.”1

Oh, that’s it, then? Then what am I doing here with my desk wedged against the door, hoping

none of the nurses walks by and asks whether the kid is still inside? Just because the kid is an

antisocial loner doesn’t mean society is evil. It really doesn’t. Another critic, allegedly named

1
Heiserman, Arthur, and James E. Miller, Jr. "J. D. Salinger: Some Crazy Cliff." Western
Humanities Review 10.2 (Spring 1956): 131, http://go.galegroup.com/
 Van Baak 3

“Anne Marple,” calls Catcher in the Rye an “eloquent defense of innocence in conflict with an

amoral world” and claims “it is to children and to nuns that Holden turns briefly as outposts of

the innocence he desires.”2 Their idea, apparently, is that this kid implicates the rest of us by not

fitting in. There are kids like Holden all over the place, and the only reason all these critics

jumped on board here is because this one wrote a novel. Why, oh why did it seem like a good

idea to help him cope by letting his write down his thoughts?

Innocence and the shadowy machinations of the mysterious “Salinger” aside, these

critiques fall flat in the face of something terribly obvious to me but apparently unnoticed by

these authors with agendas: the fact that their champion is a nearly pathological liar who suffered

a psychotic break. Even in his narrative, Holden admits that he’s a liar. Susan Mitchell, if that’s

her real name, writes:

“Wayne C. Booth defines an unreliable narrator as one who does not act according to the

implied author's norms as revealed in the work. Holden establishes these norms, showing

over and over again that Western civilization is phony, but early on, he claims

unequivocally that "I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life." If he is truly a

liar, then he is not acting according to the norms--he is flaunting them even by not

practicing what he preaches.”3

Essentially, if being phony is a concern, then having a liar for a narrator is also a concern. And

Holden is a liar. Take it from the guy who had to listen to him ramble about his life before he

was sent to the hospital. He’s a liar claiming he’s lying, too, which means he’s creating a godd

—er, sorry, creating a paradox directly intended to confuse you. He really is. If this Salinger

2
Marple, Anne. "Salinger's Oasis of Innocence." Studies in J. D. Salinger: Reviews, Essays, and
Critiques of The Catcher in the Rye and Other Fiction. Short Story Criticism, Vol. 28 (1963):
243, http://go.galegroup.com/
3
Mitchell, Susan K. "'To Tell You the Truth...' " CLA Journal 36.2 (Dec. 1992): 146.
http://go.galegroup.com/
 Van Baak 4

person was really behind these events to make a point, the point was obviously muddled in

translation.

Liar or not, though, Holden is severely depressed. To begin with, his brother Allie’s

traumatizing death scarred him for life. The self-professed “Peter Shaw” writes that “the most

striking of [Holden’s] double entendres, redolent both of guilt over Allie's death and an attempt

to fob off that guilt on someone else, is a remark about his sister Phoebe containing the words,

‘she killed Allie, too.’ ” Shaw notes the remark is followed by a seemingly-unrelated comment

on Phoebe’s age, which is incidentally the same as the age at which Allie died.4 My own

observations and, I’m ashamed to say, evidence from his book, indicate some major guilt issues.

For example, Holden says that he “broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell

of it . . . It was a very stupid thing to do, I'll admit, but I hardly didn't even know I was doing it,

and you didn't know Allie.”5 “Just for the hell of it” would indicate a subconscious, irrational

compulsion that he is incapable of describing, while the remark about knowing Allie functions as

a justification of the action, labeling the subconscious motivation. This sort of acting out often

appears in victims of depression, especially when the person is prevented by internal or external

factors from expressing himself. The antisocial, teenage Holden fits this condition almost by

definition. Further evidence is found in the fact that Holden actually talks to the deceased Allie

when the depression reaches a certain level of desperation. He expresses his guilt best on page

98, wherein he recounts an interaction with Allie that continues to haunt him. Allie had wanted

to join Holden and a friend in shooting stuff with BB guns and Holden denied him, fueling later

feelings of regret after Allie’s death. Holden writes:

“So once in a while, now, when I get very depressed, I keep saying to him, ‘Okay. Go

4
Shaw, Peter. "Love and Death in The Catcher in the Rye." New Essays on The Catcher in the
Rye. Cambridge University Press, 1991. 100. http://go.galegroup.com/
5
J.D. Salinger, “Catcher in the Rye,” 38.
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home and get your bike and meet me in front of Bobby's house. Hurry up.’ It wasn't that

I didn't use to take him with me when I went somewhere. I did. But that one day, I

didn't. He didn't get sore about it--he never got sore about anything--but I keep thinking

about it anyway, when I get very depressed.”6

The vague, sublingual idea of some sort of obligation to let Allie come along led Holden to

believe he had failed Allie with no justification. Now that Allie is gone, the deed is impossible

to atone for and Holden is reduced to escapist fantasies of rectifying his error whenever he is no

longer able to cope with this failure hanging over him.

Clinically, Holden’s account of his exploits matches the symptoms of clinical depression,

but I would go further and posit that he is also borderline insane. “Insanity,” for the purposes of

this discussion, will be defined as “having a severely disordered state of mind to the point of no

longer correlating with reality.” We can see easily enough the five symptoms required for a

diagnosis of clinical depression in Holden’s narrative—his depression has lasted for more than

two weeks, he demonstrates antisocial behavior, experiences a shift in appetite, has trouble

sleeping, and feels excessive guilt—but calling him insane requires deeper analysis. The critics

very much doubt my opinion. One writer—who would very much like us to believe, now

wouldn’t he, that his name is James Bryan—declares that Holden’s whole psychological

predicament stems from a repressed desire to sleep with his sister and that his writing of the

narrative “has given shape to, and thus achieved control of, his troubled past”—rendering his

psyche “far healthier than that of the boy who endured the events of the narrative.”7 Given my

personal experience with the subject after his writing and the extent general refutation of

Freudian psychological models, this is easily set aside, but it is also important to note that

6
J.D. Salinger, “Catcher in the Rye,” 98.
7
Bryan, James. “The Psychological Structure of The Catcher in the Rye” PMLA Vol 89, No. 5
(Oct., 1974): pp. 1074. http://www.jstor.org/stable/461377
 Van Baak 6

Bryan’s conclusion is automatically invalidated if Holden is insane for other reasons. But at

least Bryan made a legitimate effort at psychological assessment—Heiserman concludes that “it

is not Holden who should be examined for a sickness of the mind, but the world in which he has

sojourned and found himself an alien. To “cure” Holden, he must be given the contagious,

almost universal disease of phony adultism; he must be pushed over that “crazy cliff.”8 Again,

this only works if Holden isn’t insane from some factor outside Heiserman’s reasoning. Thus,

Holden’s psychological breakdown on Fifth Avenue takes out both their arguments. It really

does. You see, the depression blew Holden’s unresolved feelings of guilt over Allie into a fear

of disappearing combined with a compulsion to pray to his brother. He demonstrated

psychosomatic symptoms in that he “could hardly get [his] breath, and [he] was still sweating...”9

He proceeds to descend into more escapist fantasies. This is the mark of a mind unhinged. It

really is.

It’s all too convenient. Everything played right into Salinger’s godd—um, his waiting

hands, whoever he is. Holden couldn’t have been trying to critique our society when he was

barely able to keep his head screwed straight. The book should be considered a psychological

text instead of a commentary. But no one will listen to me! He’s insane, all of you! He’s

insane, and he’s taking me with him. I feel myself going, even starting to talk like him. But I’m

ready. I won’t go unprepared. He’s trapped in the room now. No more books from Holden

Caulfield. No more critics. Where are you, Salinger? Come out! They can’t stop me now!

Holden must be stopped! I hear footsteps. They’re coming!

Goodbye! . . . heh. He he he. Ahahaha! BWAHAHAHAHA!

8
Arthur Heiserman, "Some Crazy Cliff," 137.
9
J.D. Salinger, “Catcher in the Rye,” 198.
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Works Cited

Bryan, James. “The Psychological Structure of The Catcher in the Rye” PMLA Vol 89, No. 5
(Oct., 1974): pp. 1065-1074. http://www.jstor.org/stable/461377
Heiserman, Arthur, and James E. Miller, Jr. “J. D. Salinger: Some Crazy Cliff.” Western
Humanities Review 10.2 (Spring 1956): 129-137, http://go.galegroup.com/
Marple, Anne. “Salinger’s Oasis of Innocence.” Studies in J. D. Salinger: Reviews, Essays, and
Critiques of The Catcher in the Rye and Other Fiction. Short Story Criticism, Vol. 28
(1963): 241-244, http://go.galegroup.com/
Mitchell, Susan K. “’To Tell You the Truth...’ “ CLA Journal 36.2 (Dec. 1992): 145-156.
http://go.galegroup.com/
Salinger, J.D. “The Catcher in the Rye.” The one we use in class.
Shaw, Peter. “Love and Death in The Catcher in the Rye.” New Essays on The Catcher in the
Rye. Cambridge University Press, 1991. 97-114. http://go.galegroup.com/