“The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger (post 3): Holden Caulfield, not “crazy” or “mad”—such terms are meaningless—says “People never notice anything.”

Holden frequently calls himself “crazy” and “mad.” On the first page, he says, “I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff” (1, p. 3). On the last page, he says, “I don’t know what to think about it” (1, p. 234). One reason that Holden and most literary critics don’t know what to think about his “madman stuff” is that they use terms like “crazy” and “mad,” which do not refer to any specific mental condition.

Holden is inexplicably changeable and emotional. He has a prodigious memory for small details, but memory gaps in certain instances. He is a self-confessed liar, often for no personal gain, sometimes almost believing his own lies, which are more like fantasies than psychotic delusions. He occasionally feels like he is fading out of existence. He does things and feels things he can’t explain. He is not paranoid or incoherent. He recognizes that things he does and feels are peculiar and puzzling.

The above is not a description of schizophrenia or psychosis. It is consistent with multiple personality’s changeableness, personality switches, memory gaps, lying, and alternate personalities’ pulling the emotional and behavioral strings of the host personality from behind the scenes.

I will conclude with a comment that Holden makes (but it may not be regular old Holden): “People never notice anything” (1, p. 12). This is a common thought of alternate personalities. They like to remain incognito—by answering to the person’s regular name and pretending to be the host personality—but are continually surprised that this works, because most alternate personalities see themselves as looking quite different from the host personality, and they can’t understand why people never notice.

1. J. D. Salinger. The Catcher in the Rye [1951]. New York, Little Brown, 2014.