How Teenage Depression Changed In The 1950's

A prominent cause of Holden Caulfield’s depression is his detachment from society. To begin with, Holden isolates himself from the people around him as he refrains from developing social bonds. For instance, Holden refrains from meeting Jane Gallagher while she waits for Stradlater, despite desperately wanting to meet her. This is revealed through Holden’s comment, “I oughta go down and say hello to her [Jane]…[but] I’m not in the mood right now.” (32). This quote shows that Holden is incapable to form relationships with people around him,which reveals his insecurities. Holden is hesitant towards developing relationships, possibly due to fear of neglect. Holden’s fear of being neglected is the root of his inability to develop bonds which ultimately

Holden is perpetually forcing people to give him attention. He is incontestably a lonely kid, but instead of finding a healthy and mature way of dealing with his issues he needs to make up ridiculous plans of escape. And yet before he leaves for those ludicrous plans he must announce it to his little sister which he must have known would have caused negative accouterments. Yet, he goes and wakes her up in the middle of the night because attention is attention to him negative or positive. “That made her cry even harder. I was glad. All of a sudden I wanted her to cry till her eyes practically dropped out. I almost hated her.” (Salinger 121). This quote is said when Phoebe wants to go away with Holden, but he will not allow her. It depicts the idea that not only does Holden have zero compassion for the situation, but also the idea that Holden enjoys the idea that he is the reason for her sadness. Holden’s desire for attention is so strong that he does not care if the attention is negative or positive. In the end, he is sadistic in this moment and he does not even seem bothered by

Love also becomes an important aspect, each thrive for passion and affection from others and have someone they confide in. Holden places deep care into his younger sister Phoebe because they connect on many levels, both as childlike mind and in interest. He also longs for closure towards his deceased brother Allie. Holden worries about his parents thoughts, he respects them. He is concerned about his mother’s reaction to getting kicked out of yet another school. The only two people he feels he has truly connected with are his sister and Allie, often in times of need they are the first he contacts. Throughout his cycle of depression he talks aloud to Allie. (Quote: Holden: “I felt so depressed, you can't even imagine. What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud to Allie. I do that sometimes when I get very depressed.”) He shows he cares about Phoebe by constantly wanting to call and chat with her; he often talks about her. On the contrary he contradicts himself by finding an excuse to not call, or to not visit. By isolating himself he also goes against himself because he

Holden seems to struggle with depression. In many places throughout the novel, Holden describes to us his deep sadness. A lot of times his depression is unpredictable and triggered by tense situations. In one situation while he was explaining his feelings about the Elkton Hills headmaster’s phony and rather boring conversations with well-built and

This clearly shows that Holden is not just upset but he is thinking of suicide. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness one of the major symptoms of clinical depression is suicidal thoughts meaning Holden may be at the peak of his depression at this point. All of Holden's problems at this point may not be all related to depression though because he also shows signs of PTSD. Holden frequently thinks about his younger brother Allie and constantly compares himself to him. Holden shows his first signs of mental illness after Allie dies:

This is mainly because lack of closure of his brother's death. There is one moment when Holden expresses how he talks out loud to Allie, even though he is dead. "What I did, I started talking out loud to Allie. I do that sometimes when I get very depressed." This portrays sadness to the point that Holden needs closure on his brother's death so bad that the lack of closure may even be leading to clinic depression or slight insanity on top of his being suicidal. Holden probably in some way blames himself for his brother's death due to not always letting Allie play with him when they were little. Holden feels like committing suicide at one time which shows the true depth of Holden's depression.

After Phoebe tries getting Holden to figure out the movie that she saw with one of her friends, Holden says, ” I don’t know-Listen. Didn’t they say what time they’d--”. This quote shows that Holden does not care about what Phoebe has to say about the movie that she saw. Also, in Chapter 3, page 21, Holden says, “What I did was, I pulled the old peak of my hunting hat around to the front, then pulled it way down over my eyes.” This shows Holden is a different and playful person when his hat is involved. Holden switches his whole mood and begins joking around with Ackley, even though he just said a lot of bad things about him. Holden says in Chapter 3, that he and Ackley are the only two guys not at the football game. This shows that Holden and Ackley are similar, because the both are not liked very much because of their horrible personality, lack of communication, and their dislike in being around other people. In Ackley especially, readers can see how people treat him and how he treats himself, by not taking care of his

Depression is defined as a condition where a person feels very sad, hopeless, unimportant, and unable to live in a normal way, which is Holden’s personality in the book. It’s a very serious situation that many people go through and it takes an enormous toll on people. Many instances can cause depression and grieving the loss of someone is one of them. In the beginning, it seems like Holden is depressed because he is excluded from the people around him. Holden’s flashbacks and hallucinations, along with Phoebe reminding him that Allie is not coming back, show that his depression stems from him grieving the loss of Allie.

Most people won't show that they are lonely but Holden make it clear he is because he is always trying to make plans with people he knows or even in one case a girl he never even meet but his friend told him about. Holden is a very judgemental person and he does this to help isolate himself from society. He can't stand phonies which is almost everyone he meets is. Holden judges people who he considers boring, insecure, and people who are fake. When makes plans with people he soon realizes that it was a mistake because he finds the persons flaw and he feels like it ruins his plans and wonders why he even asked them in the first place. The people he asks to do something with are people he sees as non phonies but after doing something with them he realizes they are and tells himself he won't hang out with them

As the decades change so do the teens. Teenagers from the 1960’s won’t exactly have the same ways of thinking or ways of speaking. The way of life back then was completely different and that has an impact on teens today. Old ways are thrown out and newer ones are brought in, attitudes change. Advance technology changes the way we interact with others compared to the 1960’s. The health concerns may or may not be the same as the health concerns in the year 2014. With teens changing constantly, how will the next generation of teens be like?

Holden doesn't seem to like the few friends that he has and complains about them. This shows his depression because most people would treasure the few friends they have but Holden cannot realize the gifts he has. Another sign of his depression is that he sits alone at the football game. He does this because he just let the whole

As the 1950s generation emerged, teenagers began to develop their own beliefs and hobbies, different from previous generations, and started to become their own demographic. In generations before the 1950s, like the Depression era, teenagers commonly helped out at home with tending the land or paying the bills, rather than attending school. In fact, an article written by Claudia Reinhardt and Bill Ganzel stated, “Teenagers sometimes had to quit school to work full time on the family farm,” and that “Sometimes young people left home in search of jobs off the farm,” (1). In order to reduce the scarcity of money during the Great Depression, some teenagers needed to get jobs to help their parents with paying the bills.

We learn that Holden is mentally lonely because he thinks that neither Ackley nor Stradlater do not care about him. For instance, Holden asks if he can sleep on Ackley’s roommates bed, but Ackley does not let him to sleep on Ely’s bed and makes him turn off the light. Later on, Ackley snores while he instantly falls asleep which implies that he does not care about Holden’s situation. This made Holden very upset which caused him to “shut the damn door and went out in the corridor” (Salinger, 51). After leaving Ackley’s dorm, he decided to get out of Pencey because “[he] just didn’t want to hang around anymore” (Salinger, 51). However, leaving just made him feel even lonelier since no one is willing to listen to him. This could explain why he

(81) The only true person or thing that does seem to make Holden feel better is thinking about Phoebe. He only feels better with her because she is one of the only people who can connect with him besides Mr. Antolini, one of Holden’s school teachers. Holden puts himself down so easily that everything around him or something that he hears has a depressing side to it. Even events that happen near him, make him feel lonely and depressed even if this event has

The medical community of the 1950s and 60’s accepted a classification that divided depression into sub-types based on supposed causes of the disorder. This was influenced by the hundreds of years of back and forth debate as to whether depression was best thought of as a mental or physical problem, and by the increasing knowledge of the brain and brain chemistry. Depression that came from within the body and was caused by genetics or some other physical problem was dubbed as “Endogenous” Depression. People with endogenous depression were supposedly to view themselves as the source of their own suffering and to think that everything was their fault. Their emotional pain was thought to be unaffected by the attitudes or responses of the people