I'm a bit hesitant to post this, because I (like most of my community) am painfully ignorant of the important details that characterize the experiences of people who deal with Autism Spectrum Disorders. I am not trying to pin any person or group of people to any set of generalized symptoms, and I will try my utmost to tread carefully.
I once had a friend (I have since lost touch with him) with Asperger Syndrome, and I knew that because he told me himself. He described his experience as akin to being in a room that was lined with television sets all playing different things. He said (truthfully) he had an incredibly high-functioning brain, but that the constant sensory stimulation caused by merely existing was overwhelming. He had no filters on input, and maybe because of this, he did not filter his speech through empathy or kindness. I never met anyone more direct, and it was a little bit unnerving. Other people who knew him said that he was "creepy," but I didn't ever really see that.
In The Catcher in the Rye, I have been been aware of Holden Caulfield behaving very similarly to my old friend. Quick and direct with insults, compliments, and criticism, and seeming to not make much differentiation between the positive and negative. Holden Caulfield also has a disregard for the opinions of the people in his society that is familiar from past conversations.
My friend seemed convinced--and told me on a number of occasions--that he was not a good person, but neither was he a bad person. In his own words, "No, I'm not a good person. But I'm a decent person. I'm a decent guy." Somehow I can imagine Holden Caulfield saying that, if he deigned to talk at all.
Salinger wrote his famous novel long before Autism Spectrum Disorders had been classified and named, but they were around then too. It seems possible to me that his character might have been dealing with a condition that he couldn't begin to analyze from a medical perspective, but that would come to be called Asperger Syndrome. How likely is it?
I would like to pursue this conversation because I find it fascinating, but it deserves respect. Please treat it with that respect. I have dear friends who go through hell because of this kind of thing, and I don't want to spark more hate and misunderstanding.
I've just opened quite a number of tabs on Autism Spectrum Disorder, and I wonder if it's truly the disorder that Holden is inflicted with. One of the websites say that, "for example, some children with ASD may: rarely seek to share their enjoyment of toys or activities by pointing or showing things to others." But Holden is more than excited to share his ideas with his siblings as well as his wild dreams with other individuals.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention that "recent research suggests that children with ASD do not respond to emotional cues in human social interactions because they may not pay attention to the social cues that others typically notice." Holden zooms in on minuscule details that no one else seems to pay attention to (save for Phoebe). Not to mention that his academic ability would probably debunk this theory. He purposefully changes his daily routine; something that would typically upset children with ASD. On the other hand, he says "goddamn" and "that killed me" quite a lot. Even so, I'm hesitant to use ASD to describe Holden Caulfield' mentality.
I agree with everything you're saying, and it is backed up by medical evidence. I was specifically talking about Asberger Syndrome, though, which has different characteristics from disorders on the other side of the spectrum.
DeleteI always hesitate to attempt any "diagnosis" of a literary character, but you are onto something here in terms of the palpable gap we sense between Holden's "interior" world as expressed solely to us in the narration and the often awkward way he conducts himself in public. But one thing I don't see in Holden so much is the inability to gauge others' emotions: he often comes across as a remarkably compassionate person for a boy his age, and I'm thinking in particular of those scenes with Jane Gallagher. When Holden has difficulty expressing himself in socially conventional ways, it seems more like a choice or a question of taste than an inability to grasp the rules: there's a profound degree of self-consciousness, as he sees himself acting "phony" and hates himself for it, so he polices his own (and others') behavior to be on the lookout for any encroaching insincerity.
ReplyDelete