Catcher In The Rye - Cultural Assumption 3

Mental Health

Holden has been demonstrated to be more than average person with mental issues. He has been described as a severely mentally ill person which could be a case of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia but more likely he is suffering from major depressive disorder for which was caused by his traumatic experience of his brother Allie's tragic death, examples are his negativity towards the world.

Holden is literally about to crash. Near the beginning as well as the end of the novel, he feels that he will disappear or fall into an abyss when he steps off a curb to cross a street. Sometimes when this happens, he calls on his dead brother, Allie, for help. Part of Holden's collapse is due to his inability to come to terms with death. Thoughts of Allie lying in his grave in the cemetery in the rain, surrounded by dead bodies and tombstones, haunt Holden. He wants time itself to stop. He wants beautiful moments to last forever, using as his model the displays in glass at the Museum of Natural History, in which the same people are shown doing the same things year after year. Holden's fears and desires are understandable, but his solution (avoiding reality) is impossible. Life is change. His feelings are typically adolescent, feelings shared by virtually everyone who is or ever has been his age. One of the reasons we like Holden is that he is so candid about how he feels. 

During the 1950s mental illness was defined in an extreme way, causing the public to socially reject mentally ill people.

The public viewed both patients and doctors of mental illnesses in a negative way 
One in three families would admit a family member to a mental institution.

Doctors in mental institutions during the 1950s would use extremely shocking treatments and the leading treatment would be electroconvulsive shock treatment. Electroconvulsive shock treatment is a procedure in which electric currents are passed through the brain, intentionally triggering a brief seizure. ECT seems to cause changes in brain chemistry that can quickly reverse symptoms of certain mental illnesses. It often works when other treatments are unsuccessful.

Holden shows a habit for singling people that he despises by calling them "phonies", he uses this phrase as a way to express criticism. Holden calls his schoolmates phonies in chapter two. During a conversation with Mr. Spenser, Holden goes on an internal rant, providing information for his audience regarding the phony nature of everyone at Elkton Hills (his school before Pencey Prep):  "One of the biggest reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded by phonies." Later in chapter three, Holden talks about his schoolmates at Pencey Prep being phony. First he talks about Ossenburger: "I just see the big phony bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send him a few more stiffs." Later, he talks about Stradlater being a phony: "He was at least a pretty friendly guy, Stradlater. It was partly a phony kind of friendly, but at least he always said hello to Ackley and all." At one point, Holden even nonchalantly calls himself a phony: "I stopped on the way, though, and picked up Ackley's hand, and gave him a big, phony handshake." Overall, Holden simply thinks that the entire world is phony--himself included. 

Catcher In The Rye - Cultural Assumption 2

Women In The 1950's and Catcher In The Rye

In the 1950s Women were culturally recognized as being only the house maid of the home by taking care of the cleaning, cooking meals and taking care of the family. Women were forced to leave school early cause men feared that they would take their jobs and when men took job which were specified for women during that period such as teaching or textiles were considered to be pedophiles. Most of the women were  married to men at a very early age cause of being dropped out of school and or university.

The author of the novel J. D. Salinger somewhat documented about these issues being written in a depressed person called Holden Caulfield's point of view by saying that he believes that women would just be driven by instinct and just go out with guys for the money. He felt this way mainly because that was the sort of women he was hanging with, and because he tends to generalize although he respects his sister for many reasons.

In the paragraphs shows how what Holden thinks of a woman being illustrated in chapter 13. (Chapter 13)

"I mean most girls are so dumb and all.  After you neck them for a while, you can really watch them losing their brains.  You take a girl when she really gets passionate, she just hasn't any brains."

Cultural Assumption Definition

1. Cultural assumptions are an important aspect of understanding context. Culture is a system of beliefs, customs (usual habits and practices), values, attitudes and lifestyles of a particular people. Culture can refer to groups of people such as nations or more specific groups such as sporting teams. For example, if you live in Australia it's always hot down under and they have a shrimp on the barbie once in a while. If you listen to the Beatles or Queen, you have a creative taste in music. Only Indians eat curry. All Islam people are in ISIS and today's youth don't show respect to their elders.
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Cultural Assumptions From Catcher In The Rye 1

The Cultural Assumption of Catcher In The Rye

A cultural assumption for Catcher In The Rye are the the teenagers where they are depicted as somewhat absent minded people in Holden's perspective. They can be seen as immature in the world where they do quite rather silly things.

In the book Holden expresses his teenage cultural assumption by finding it painful and depressing about growing up because he still wants to be a child in his life but needs to start realizing that he need to become the young adult we will be in the future.