How Is Holden Caulfield In A Mental Facility

In the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, we follow a story told by Holden Caulfield and his journey of leaving Pencey Prep to his eventual return back home, and we learn what type of person Holden is. Throughout the novel there are different signs of why Holden may be in a mental facility. To show this we will observe the different signs from the novel such as how he is violent (thinking of horribly hurting people), how people have questioned his sanity and suggested he should be psychoanalyzed, and how he thinks of suicide (especially when he is depressed). One of the strongest signs is how violent Holden can get because that could be a sign of how he is potentially a danger to others. Even though Holden thinks he is “yellow”, he can be violent and have extremely violent thoughts, which makes Holden seem a danger to others (117). One example of how Holden thinks violently is when he is talking to Ackley about his new hat and says, “I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye, like I was taking aim at it. ‘This is a people shooting hat,’ I said. ‘I shoot people in this hat’” (30). So he thinks, and talks about, shooting people …show more content…
One example is after Maurice socked him in the stomach, and while he was trying to fall asleep he tells us, “It took me quite a while to get to sleep - I wasn’t even tired - but finally I did. What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would’ve done it, too, if I’d been sure somebody’d cover me up as soon as I landed” (136). Since Holden was literally considering taking his own life, and how he almost would have done it, shows how he thinks of afflicting self harm, which shows that he may be a danger to