'Get a Life, Holden Caulfield' - Teenage Skaz Response
- juliafurst
- Jan 16, 2017
- 2 min read
I believe Jennifer Schuessler was spot on with her argument about Holden losing his grip on today's teenagers. She has so many points that I was even thinking when reading the book, and as an American teenager, it shows that her thoughts on the matter were right. I think the reason teenagers liked him the 1960's was because he was a rebel and different in society in a dangerous, new, and adventurous way. Now a days he stands out as more of a too blunt, lonely, and depressing person. Oh, how the tables have turned.
To me the issue goes beyond the character himself, but into the literary elements. It seems like there are new replaces for all of the words he used often in the writing. Instead of calling people phony, now a days its called fake; ex. Wow, what a fake friend she is. It seems as many of the other words, like goddam, are just simply out of date...
After analyzing the text for the last hour and a half, I can officially say my opinion on this matter has changed completely, especially with this quote stuck in my head from Schuessler's article; “Oh, we all hated Holden in my class. We just wanted to tell him, ‘Shut up and take your Prozac.’ ”. Wow. That is all I can say.
After reading this quote over and over, I am now thinking that one of the reasons Holden is losing his grip on society is maybe because he is imperfect and our society is so harsh it excludes, losers/imperfections, like Holden. This quote has shown just how ignorant american teenagers have become. Depression and anxiety has almost tripled since 1960, and depression was a very rare mental ailment, which is probably why why this book was so popular back then, breaking social 'norms', because we all know Holden was suicidal at more than one point in the story and he struggled with depression. I feel as though now this character just hits way to close to home, as I know many people who have or have family members who are living with depression and anxiety, just like Holden. Schuesseler gave examples of how teenagers now are different from Holden, but I am sure she never looked at it the other way around. I feel as many teenagers do not feel as it is socially acceptable to talk about real depression, which ,I am sure, make the people living with the condition feel worse, and it also probably makes people uncomfortable reading about it, I know it made me uncomfortable and sad.
In my mind there are many reasons american teenagers have grown away from Holden, but these are just a few of the reason that really stood out too me.
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