What’s Wrong with Holden Caulfield in _The Catcher in the Rye_?
Holden Caulfield suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. The fictional cause is the death of his beloved little brother, Allie.
The reason that The Catcher in the Rye is so powerful is that it is a true book (I don’t say that it is a true story). Holden is J.D. Salinger, himself, and Holden’s PTSD is Salinger’s PTSD.
Salinger was on Utah Beach on D-Day, and he was in the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of Hurtgen Forest. When he returned to the U.S., he was suffering from the effects of the intense battles he had experienced and withdrew from most society in an attempt to find relief from what we would now call PTSD.
Holden has suffered such a loss in his brother that he has become terrified he will lose something else, but he does not know exactly what, so he tries to convince himself that he is beyond all of the attachments associated with the phony world. This gives him an emotional catbird seat from which to criticize everyone and everything as a prophylactic against any possible further loss.
Salinger suffered such losses in the course of WWII as only other combat veterans can fathom. So, his horror of further loss became Holden’s horror.
Notice that the life that Salinger actually lived in New Hampshire was remarkably similar to the fantasy life that Holden describes, in which he would live in the country, pretending to be mute and only communicating through written notes.
Holden Caulfield is some version of J.D. Salinger, and the disorder is real.
