Coping with Insecurities Human beings can have a lot of trouble coping with their problems and do not always handle their problems in the best way. In the book The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Slinger the protagonist, and narrator, Holder Coalfield calls people names to purposely detach himself because he feels the need to mask his own insecurities and not allow himself to let others down. Holder uses names like “moron” and “jerk” to describe most people around him in order to comfort himself because he is self-conscious. Holder also calls people names in order to make sure he is distant enough from his peers so he Anton let them down.
Holder throughout the book is calling people and things in his surroundings names such as “moron”, “depressing’, and “jerk”. He says these things because he does not feel comforTABLE with who he is. When Holder goes to a club in New York he looks across a few TABLEs at three girls who start “giggling like morons” when he gives them the “once-Ovid’, Holder gets extremely self- conscious and thinks they are laughing at him (Slinger 70). Holder then continues to think about them badly throughout the night despite being with them with them for an extended period of time.
When Holder finally intros cues himself to dance with the girls he introduces himself as “Jim Steel?’ to make sure that he couldn’t embarrass himself, only Jim Steele because he is so self conscious he doesn’t even want to be himself (Slinger 73). The same night Holder repeatedly calls some Of the girls at the club “ugly” to make him feel better because of his lack of self confidence about his appearance (Slinger 74). Holder clearly calls these girls names and categorizes them to make himself feel better about his situations and tries to distance himself from them.
Holder feels the need to isolate himself from everybody around him because he is scared to let people down. Holder just before leaving Pence for the last time yelled throughout his corridor “Sleep tight morons! ” (Slinger 52). Holder is clearly trying to show the rest Of the kids at pence that he doesn’t care about being kicked out of school but Holder is Just covering up the fact that he is actually worried about letting his family down. Holder after leaving Pence decides to go to a hotel and wait a few days in New York before returning home to tell his parents the bad news.
Holder after ordering a prostitute to his room because he is lonely says “she [is] depressing’ so he only wants to talk, but really Holder is just being scared that if he gets intimate with this women he will get judged like he has been his whole life (Slinger 96). When Holder is in the cab he put on his red hunting cap but he “took it off before [he] checked in. [He] didn’t want to look like like a screwball or something which is really ironic. [He] didn’t know then that the goddamn hotel was full of perverts and morons. ” (Slinger 61). Holder then later hires a prostitute to talk to.
Holder is clearly trying to make himself not one Of these “screwballs” yet he tends to act like one because he knows that others will undoubtedly distance themselves from him, which makes him unTABLE to let the people around him down (Slinger 61). Holder’s name calling is another way he escapes his own insecurities about life. Holder is TABLE to get through his adolescence calling people names and distancing himself from his peers because he is uncomforTABLE with who he is. Dodging your problems and calling other people names to cover up insecure reties wont advance you in life.
