Antisocial Personality Disorder: A disorder charactarized by antisocial behavior such as lying, stealing, manipulating others, and sometimes the use of violence; and a lack of guilt, shame and empathy. Sometimes, this illness is called psychopathy or sociopathy. Unfornately, Holden is a sociopath because he is deceitful, irresponsible and he lacks remorse for action that harm others.
(56) Holden Caulfield is described as a really trouble six`teen-year-old boy who is telling a story about how he got expelled from Pencey Preparatory School. Holden is deceitful.Deceitfulness is defined as a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive or an intentional untruth. One of the numberious symptoms of the deceitfulness is the mythomania, which is the tendency to lie, exaggerate, or relate incredible imaginary adventures as if they had really happened, occurring in some mental disorders, such as antisocial personality disorder.
In "The Catcher in the Rye", there are many manifestation that the author, Jerome David Salinger shows threw Holden Caulfied's action. First, he feaked a brain tumor when he talked to Ernest's mother.During their conversation, he also says that her son was a very popular guy in the school and that he liked him, but in real her son was like an addition to the school and he was nerdy. He again lied to her when he said that his name was Rudolf Schmidt, which was in real the janitor's name, ""Rudolf Schmidt", I told her. I didn't feel like givin her my whole life history. Rudolf Schmidt was the name of the janitor of our dorm"(Salinger, 54).
He also lied when he said that he was going to the opera when really he was going to buy a magizine.In Brief, Holden has one of the three major point of the antisocial personality disorder. (253) Sometimes, deceits lead to irresponsability. Irresponsibility is descibed by the state of not acting in a responsible manner for conscious or unconscious reasons. It can lead to many symptoms but the most common is failure, which means the act or instance of failing or proving unsuccessful. In the novel, manifestation comes to his sumum.
First, he unsuccessed four of five subjects in his preparatory school and that is why he got expelled from his prestijious school.Also Holden says one time that if it wasn't his father that forced him to go to school, he would not even think about going, this part means that with out his mother and his father, he cannot do anything which makes him irresponsible, " They kicked me out [... ] I was flunking four subjects and not applying myself and all. They gave me frequent warning to start applying myself-especially arround mid terms, when my parents came up for a conference with old thurmer-but I didn't do it.
And this Pencey Preparatory School was his fourth school from where he got expelled. If he would not be irresponsible and deceitful, he would not lack guilt. When we lack remorse, it means that we do not feel anything for the moral anguish arising from repentance for past misdeeds; bitter regret. Lacking conscience and remorse, people with antisocial personality disorder can lie, seduce, and manipulate others without a twinge of feeling or regret, which are the most common symptoms.
The famous american author shows a lot of manifestation in his only book. First Holden admitted being a liar, " I am the most terrific liar ". Second, he characterized himself like a hypocrite which is like a "phony"(people he hates the most). Third, he lied to get sympathy from others like when he lied to Ernest's mother when he lied to her about his brain tumor.
Fourth, he has no remorse when he accepts Maurice's offer of sending him a prostitute for five dollards.
