The Importance Of Loneliness In The Catcher In The Rye

Loneliness destroy kids mentally around the world every day and it brings deep despair on to people. All them by themselves with no one else to hold on to and they can’t escape the feeling of depression. In this coming of age novel, The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger it catches this reality and turns it into a novel that dwells deep into heart wrenching themes such as the phoniness, painfulness of growing up, isolation and self-protection and so much more. All by a weird and very complex character, Holden Caulfield. He leaves his only place that he had with a sense of security, his dorm, out into the world, which he knew nothing about. The more and more Holden tries to fight the realities of life all by himself, he starts to lose himself …show more content…
This is why he has no friends to go around. His attitude puts a wall in between himself and other people and he can’t seem to break it down. His attitude is severely dull and bland and so negative that developing a friendship off of it is nearly impossible. No one likes to converse with someone who goes around calling people phonies and corny all day because it isn’t normal. Holden lack of friends if proven here in the beginning of the book when he separates himself from the rest of the Pencey students by watching the football game from Thomson Hill and not by the grand stands. “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, deep and terrific on the Pencey side, because practically the whole school expect me was there.” (Salinger, 2). His lack of friends was given in the beginning of the book to set off an idea on what type of character Holden is. Football games should be celebrated as a school, but Holden is the outcast of the school leaving him to nobody’s call. Holden is not a very sociable person because he finds himself better than others. This very problem is what is causing Holden to be lonely and have …show more content…
“I didn’t answer him. All I did was, I got up and went over and looked out the window. I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was dead” (Salinger, 48). Another good example of Holden reaching out for friendship in the novel is when he contacts Carl Luce, an older boy that he knows from the Whooten School. Holden is desperate to talk to someone about flunking out of Pencey, so he arranged to meet Luce at the Wicker Bar. But once he gets there, Luce doesn 't want to hear about Holden 's problems, he is bored with him even before they are together for five minutes. "Listen, hey Luce, you 're one of these intellectual guys. I need your advice, I 'm in a terrific, he let out this big groan on me. "Listen Caulfield, if you want to sit here and have a quiet peaceful drink and a quiet peaceful conver." (Salinger, 144). At the end of their brief get together, Luce recommends that Holden seek psychoanalysis. Holden is desperate for a friend, but he seems to get rejected over and over again. Holden loves to push his problems onto other people and that what eventually leads to his