Isolation In Catcher In The Rye

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Sukarno once said, “The worst cruelty that can be inflicted on a human being is isolation.” This quote is prevalent to Holden, the main character in the novel the Catcher in the Rye. Holden is a sixteen-year-old boy, who hates his life and believes most people are phony. One day he decides to leave his school; Pencey. In Pencey, Holden struggles to pass classes, causing him to leave the school. He leaves and travels to New York City, where he isolates himself from the world much further due to how lonely he is, all alone in New York City. The isolation and loneliness causes Holden to become very depressed, destroying himself internally. J.D Salinger, through The Catcher in the Rye, argues that alienation is prevalent in Holden's life because of the way he depends on isolating himself through judging people, but it destroys him. Holden proves he self-isolates himself through the way he judges people. An example is the Pencey football game versus Saxton Hall, where Holden says,“The game with Saxon Hall was supposed to be a very big deal around Pencey... I was standing way the hell up on top of Thomsen Hill... You could hear them all yelling, deep and terrific on the Pencey side, because …show more content…
J.D. Salinger illustrates Holden's self-alienation through the way he names students at Pencey and people at the Wicked Bar “phony”. Also, Salinger proves how Holden’s self-isolation causes him to be unable to call anyone when he got to New York City. Salinger, by inserting this section, indicates that Holden has already destroyed his relationship with most people he knows, because of how he isolates himself. Also, Holden destroys his relationships because of the way he judges people, which makes him isolate himself from them. Furthermore, according to Sukarno, Holden inflicted the worst cruelty that could be inflicted on a human being to himself,

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