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I'm writing about how Holden Caulfield isolates himself from the rest of society to protect himself. I wrote that he protects himself because he...

Holden is trying to protect himself—and others—from "man's inhumanity to man." This means all forms of bullying, degrading, dehumanizing, exploitation, and people's inability to see and value others.


There are many examples of this kind of behavior in the novel. Holden has sometimes been a victim of it (often partly bringing it on himself), and sometimes he has witnessed it. Here are some examples.


  • In Chapter 6, Holden's roommate Stradlater misses the depth of an essay Holden has written. In his disgust, he tells Holden, "You don't do one damn thing the way you're supposed to." Holden then starts to pester Stradlater about Jane, whom Stradlater has just had a date with. Holden is worried that Stradlater took advantage of her. He keeps it up until Stradlater beats him up. It's this incident that causes Holden to leave the school earlier than he'd planned on.

  • In Chapter 11, Holden relates how he tried to comfort Jane after she cried over something involving her stepfather.

  • In Chapters 13 - 14, Holden tries to hire a prostitute, but once she comes to his room, he can't bring himself to treat her in a dehumanizing manner. He tries to make conversation with her first. When she is not interested in this, he loses his nerve and sends her away, paying her. Later her pimp comes back to the room and tries to collect more money from Holden by intimidating him.

  • In Chapter 15, while talking with a nun about Romeo and Juliet, Holden explains why he likes Mercutio best in the play: "The thing is, it drives me crazy if somebody gets killed -- especially somebody very smart and entertaining and all -- and it's somebody else's fault." This is a pretty good summary of Holden's outlook on life.

  • In Chapter 22, Holden recalls some of the things he hates about schools he's been to. He recounts a principal sitting in the back of a teacher's class, interrupting the class with jokes, and the teacher having to suck up to him. He recalls a boy excluded from a fraternity "just because he was boring and pimply." These are the kinds of things that bother Holden.

Finally, in the most harrowing story (also in Chapter 22), Holden recalls James Castle, a boy who was bullied by a group of other boys until he jumped to his death out the window of his dorm. This shows the connection between man's inhumanity to man and death itself. Despite feeling suicidal, Holden recognizes that death is the enemy and he has a strong desire to protect other people from it. His rants and stories imply that when people treat each other in a dehumanizing way, they are putting them through a version of death, and it can even lead to their literal death, as in the case of James Castle.


Holden does, as you say, spend a good part of the novel isolating himself from others, but don't forget that he is also reaching out to others constantly throughout the novel. When they fail to respond in the way he hopes, he runs and isolates himself again, only to try again by reaching out to someone else.

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