Suicide and Depression in Literature
Millions of people all over the world suffer daily from depression and suicidal tendencies. As well as in the real world, characters in the literary world struggle with these issues too. Many great literary works revolve around characters with a significant mental condition. It helps to keep the story interesting and forces you to look deeper into the character’s minds to find out what they are really thinking. In the Shakespearean play “Hamlet”, Prince Hamlet is observed to be quite messed up in the head. His thoughts and actions are so rash, that it is unclear whether it is an act, or he is actually ill. In contrast, Holden Caulfield from, The Catcher in the Rye, shares the entirety of his story from the …show more content…
The whole story that is narrated by Holden is told from a mental hospital, he “was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage.” (Salinger 50). Throughout the book he exudes obvious symptoms of depression, for instance when he says “It makes me so depressed I go crazy” (Salinger 19). He also shows suicidal tendencies, and hates adults and those in charge. He is incapable of applying himself, he has an unwieldy nature and as a result is constantly being expelled from every new school he tries. He often attempts to alleviate his depression with contemptible acts such as smoking, drinking, and girls. Just like Hamlet despises King Claudius, Holden has a very negative view on his superiors, and adulthood in general. He feels as if he is “surrounded by phonies” (Salinger 19), and imagines himself as being the catcher in the rye, or someone who catches children from falling off of a cliff in order to save them. This is a metaphor for him wanting to save the children from enduring the troubles of adult life. The same can be said of Hamlet, who thinks that the system of government is corrupt and would use the word “phony”, like Holden, to describe Claudius and other
Millions of people all over the world suffer daily from depression and suicidal tendencies. As well as in the real world, characters in the literary world struggle with these issues too. Many great literary works revolve around characters with a significant mental condition. It helps to keep the story interesting and forces you to look deeper into the character’s minds to find out what they are really thinking. In the Shakespearean play “Hamlet”, Prince Hamlet is observed to be quite messed up in the head. His thoughts and actions are so rash, that it is unclear whether it is an act, or he is actually ill. In contrast, Holden Caulfield from, The Catcher in the Rye, shares the entirety of his story from the …show more content…
The whole story that is narrated by Holden is told from a mental hospital, he “was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage.” (Salinger 50). Throughout the book he exudes obvious symptoms of depression, for instance when he says “It makes me so depressed I go crazy” (Salinger 19). He also shows suicidal tendencies, and hates adults and those in charge. He is incapable of applying himself, he has an unwieldy nature and as a result is constantly being expelled from every new school he tries. He often attempts to alleviate his depression with contemptible acts such as smoking, drinking, and girls. Just like Hamlet despises King Claudius, Holden has a very negative view on his superiors, and adulthood in general. He feels as if he is “surrounded by phonies” (Salinger 19), and imagines himself as being the catcher in the rye, or someone who catches children from falling off of a cliff in order to save them. This is a metaphor for him wanting to save the children from enduring the troubles of adult life. The same can be said of Hamlet, who thinks that the system of government is corrupt and would use the word “phony”, like Holden, to describe Claudius and other