Personality Disorder of Holden Caulfield

Holden Caulfield's Narcissistic Personality Disorder

In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger created the character of Holden Caulfield, an adolescent boy who is faced with the obstacles of both society and life as he struggles to find direction. In many respects, Holden seems not unlike the typical teenager: he is on a quest to discover his own unique identity and he longs for acceptance from his parents and peers.Yet unlike the typical teenager, Holden's mental state becomes decreasingly stable throughout the book and the audience learns that he has been admitted to a mental hospital. While it may appear that Holden Caulfield is plagued by a severe mental illness such as manic depressive disorder, the truth, however, is much more benign. The deterioration of his mental state is brought on by a compelling family tragedy which aggravates his existing anxiety and depression and, as a result, develops into narcissistic personality disorder.

Narcissism is a term often confused with egomania or high self-esteem. Drew Pinsky, M.D. (2009) writes that narcissism is really a disconnection with oneself, and he claims that the key to understanding its origins in the Greek myth of Narcissus is that Narcissus "failed to recognize himself in his own reflection." (88) Narcissists lack self- awareness, and are "haunted by chronic feelings of loneliness, emptiness, and self- loathing." (88) They look to others to fuel their feelings of self-importance. Clinical levels of narcissism are measured by the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), which determines the presence of the seven classical traits of narcissism: authority, entitlement, exhibitionism, exploitativeness, self-sufficiency, superiority, and vanity. (89) Pinsky claims that childhood trauma is the true cause of "unhealthy" narcissism. He classifies narcissists as "traumatized individuals who are unable to connect in any real way with other people." (7) He believes that, "narcissists often have a deep sense of emptiness and shame that they carry from early in life." (241)

Anna Freud, wife of Sigmund, argues that Holden Caulfield does in fact suffer from narcissistic personality disorder:

"I believe the issue is not so much Holden's anger and melancholy but I repeat, the narcissism -- that's the key: what in our profession we'd call a 'narcissistic personality disorder.' He's quick to turn on others, and he gives no one the benefit of the doubt, and he's always bringing everything back to himself ('self-referential' as we'd say in a clinical conference)." (Coles)

Narcissists are known to be habitual liars (Lasch 84), just as Holden describes himself:

"I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible." (Salinger 16)

The narcissism in this declaration is further illustrated by the pride Holden appears to take in claiming that he is a good liar. Holden's deep insecurity, and thus narcissism, fuels his compulsive lying. He cannot find his place in the world, because he does not allow the world to know him. He is shunned by his peers because of his inability to have normal conversations and relationships.

A prime example of Holden's narcissism is how he considers others to be inferior to him. Twenge and Campbell write: "Narcissists see themselves as fundamentally superior -- they are special, entitled, unique." (19) Holden calls everyone phony and makes several comments about how people aren't as perfect as he is. Salinger describes Holden's narcissism in this quote: "The reason he fixed himself up to look good was because he was madly in love with himself" (Salinger 27). Holden is quite bold in announcing his own sexual attractiveness at several times through out the novel. He boasts, "I am quite sexy" (54) and that he is "probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw" (62). These statements are a thinly veiled, narcissistic attempt to convince the audience of his sexual prowess, but this prevents Holden from expressing his true feelings, which are doubtful of his abilities.

A significant trait of narcissistic personality disorder is the habit of sabotaging relationships out of fear of intimacy (Twenge and Campbell 19). When Holden is with Sally Hayes, he starts to fool around with her, but fails to follow through with sex (Salinger 125). He calls an "easy" girl who "didn't mind doing it once in a while" (Salinger 63), Faith Cavendish, when he knew she was unavailable. Later, when Faith contacts Holden, he avoids meeting her by claiming that, "Tonight's the only time I can make it" (Salinger 66). Another example of this narcissistic rejection of women was with a prostitute, Sunny. Holden has her alone and she is willing to engage in sexual acts with him, but when she starts "getting funny" (Salinger 97), he claims that he just had an "operation" in order to avoid making sexual contact.