How Is Holden Caulfield A Sociopath
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Holden Caulfield: Sociopath or Everyman? The minds of assassins generally teem with oddities. For example, Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of President William McKinley, was so devoted to his anarchist principles that he refused to talk to anyone whom he perceived to be an authority figure in the aftermath of the assassination. This included his court-appointed attorneys and the judge at his trial, which led to his attorneys attempting to secure a finding of insanity but ended up exasperating the jury, which only required an hour of deliberations to find him guilty of first-degree murder and sentence him to the electric chair. When he finally said some last words before his execution, they were “I killed the …show more content…
After Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon, he pulled out a copy of J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and started reading it until he was arrested. John Hinckley, Jr., who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, was also the owner of a copy of Salinger’s most famous novel. However, his more conscious association was with a desire to impress actress Jodie Foster. Given the fact that Catcher in the Rye has sold more than 65 million copies, this may be more of an incidental association than that which Chapman had to the book. Chapman, as a Christian, was offended by Lennon’s open avowal of atheism. Chapman hoped that his deed would keep children from following Lennon down the path to atheism. As far as Hinckley goes, it seems that the book was simply on his coffee table. After all, Lee Harvey Oswald owned Catcher in the Rye as well, but he also owned books by Marx, Hitler and Orwell, so it is difficult to pinpoint the source of the influence that drove him to kill President …show more content…
One of the most obvious diagnoses for Holden is that he suffers from depression. Throughout the entire book, he is always talking about the fact that one thing or another is causing him to feel lonely or to feel depressed. A lot of the time, he fails to accomplish even the most basic goals. He emerges as a perpetual defeatist, which is one of the classic signs of clinical depression. The fact that he turns to alcohol to try and make himself feel better is just another possible indicator of depression; many people who suffer from that malady turn to alcohol to try and feel
Instructor
Class
Submission Date
Holden Caulfield: Sociopath or Everyman? The minds of assassins generally teem with oddities. For example, Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of President William McKinley, was so devoted to his anarchist principles that he refused to talk to anyone whom he perceived to be an authority figure in the aftermath of the assassination. This included his court-appointed attorneys and the judge at his trial, which led to his attorneys attempting to secure a finding of insanity but ended up exasperating the jury, which only required an hour of deliberations to find him guilty of first-degree murder and sentence him to the electric chair. When he finally said some last words before his execution, they were “I killed the …show more content…
After Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon, he pulled out a copy of J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and started reading it until he was arrested. John Hinckley, Jr., who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, was also the owner of a copy of Salinger’s most famous novel. However, his more conscious association was with a desire to impress actress Jodie Foster. Given the fact that Catcher in the Rye has sold more than 65 million copies, this may be more of an incidental association than that which Chapman had to the book. Chapman, as a Christian, was offended by Lennon’s open avowal of atheism. Chapman hoped that his deed would keep children from following Lennon down the path to atheism. As far as Hinckley goes, it seems that the book was simply on his coffee table. After all, Lee Harvey Oswald owned Catcher in the Rye as well, but he also owned books by Marx, Hitler and Orwell, so it is difficult to pinpoint the source of the influence that drove him to kill President …show more content…
One of the most obvious diagnoses for Holden is that he suffers from depression. Throughout the entire book, he is always talking about the fact that one thing or another is causing him to feel lonely or to feel depressed. A lot of the time, he fails to accomplish even the most basic goals. He emerges as a perpetual defeatist, which is one of the classic signs of clinical depression. The fact that he turns to alcohol to try and make himself feel better is just another possible indicator of depression; many people who suffer from that malady turn to alcohol to try and feel