English

Dhruv Verma        

17th November 2014

Mrs. Cook

Honors Sophomore Literature

                                             Motif Essay

        In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger illustrates Holden’s interactions with people like Mr. Spencer and feels depressed about Pencey including all the people that go there, his grades, and his teachers. Salinger in depth uses the motif loneliness and depression, “being away from the world.” He develops this by saying, having no interactions with the outside world can have a huge impact in your life and at times, people may not know what the challenges and impacts are. “Everybody was asleep or out or home for the weekend, and it was very, very quiet and depressing in the corridor.”(51) When people are not satisfied with where and whom they are, they can usually develop low self-esteem.

        The first appearance of the motif, “loneliness and depression” arrives when Salinger uses loneliness at the point where Holden addresses about how lonesome he feels at Pencey Prep. Holden indicates how everyone goes to the football game with their groups and then there is him. “They don’t do any damn more molding at Pencey then they do at any other school. And I did not know anybody there that was splendid and clear-thinking and all.”(2) Logically, Salinger reveals why Holden is always “lonely and depressed” in the beginning is because Holden’s relationships with others is not stable. “Pencey was full of crooks. Quite a few guys came from these very wealthy families, but it was full of crooks anyway.”(4) Holden thinks he is better than everyone else he describes at his school.

The first time you notice the motif “loneliness and depression” in the middle of the book is when Holden describes people he meets that make him feel desolated. “Also, there were very few people around my age in the place. They were mostly old, show offy looking guys”. (69) This shows at the moment Holden talks to the people he meets, Holden has a very negative feeling towards them so he says they are all phony and ruins the chance of Holden actually having a decent relationship with others. Likewise, As Holden steps out he feels miserable about New York, “New York is terrible, when somebody laughs on the street very late at night. You can hear it for miles.”(81) This alludes to the fact that Holden cannot have positive thoughts about the outside world.

Nevertheless, as The Catcher in the Rye gets to the end. Salinger reveals the use of the motif, “loneliness and depression” when Holden is interacting with Phoebe, and Phoebe is willing to help Holden, “Why can’t I? Please, Holden! I will not do anything, I will just go with you and that is all.”(206) This implies to as Holden is finding a way out of his city, there is still his sister willing to support him and keep him company but Holden refuses  and so he drops the plan of going to the west because he does not want to reveal his lonesome. Similarly, after calling Sally from the phone booth, Holden has a conversation with the guy that plays the piano for Valencia and the guy leaves Holden and reminds him of Stradlater because of the same style of combing hair. “All these handsome guys are the same. When they are done combing their goddamn hair, they beat it on you. When I finally got down off the radiator and went out to the hat check room, I was crying and all. I don’t know why, but I was.”(153). At this point, this revealed Holden’s lonesome because no one cared to talk to him. Just like how Sally hung up the phone when having a conversation with Holden and the piano player did not answer him and left.