A Psychoanalytic Study Of Holden In The Catcher In The Rye From A Freudian Perspective

Published in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye, composed by J. D. Salinger, an influential writer in the post WWII era, has been one of the most famous novels in the 20th century USA. It vividly reveals the loneliness, frustration, depression, and alienation felt by the protagonist Holden Caulfield who is a representative for American adolescents of the time confronting the changes from childhood to adulthood.This thesis strives to study Holden from a psychoanalytic perspective, employing Freud Structural Model as the theoretical frame. Freud believes that human behavior and personality are largely the manifestation of underlying psychological forces of which the individual remains unaware (Freud 23). An analysis is conducted on Holden s personality structure in accordance with Freud Structural Model, that is, Holden s id, ego and superego as well as the internal battles among them. Conclusions are arrived at that Holden s ego is relatively weak, mediating all the while between the id and the superego, and his mind tends to be controlled by the requests of more frequently his superego than his id; and that Holden searches desperately for identity and position in an adults world, as is shown in his struggling between childhood and adulthood, his uncertainness of direction in life, his conflict between identity acquisition and identity diffusion, and his failure of identity exploration. Based on these, the thesis further argues that Holden is struggling between two worlds, childhood of innocence and adulthood of sophistication. The process of growing up is slow and painful for Holden because he is not psychologically prepared to achieve an adult identity. Moreover, the thesis focuses on the psychological analysis of the protagonist as a soul catcher. Both the alienation from the phony world and the failure of school and family education contribute to Holden s psychological crisis. Holden searches for the purity of soul through deaf-mute fantasy and the catcher in the rye fantasy. The greatest tragedy with Holden, however, lies in that he has no real ideals of his own to substitute for that of the phony adults world. Unable to adapt himself into a meaningful life or find an appropriate position in the society, Holden is destined to resigning to the society. Eventually Holden regenerates his identity by the power of love and his own epiphanies.The first chapter of the thesis provides some background information; the second chapter explores the characters of Holden and his searches for identity; the third chapter analyzes the experience, the puzzles and frustrations, and the regeneration of Holden as a soul catcher.