Growing up can be hard as people have to go through the journey of transitioning from a child to an adult and face tough decisions. Their self-consciousness heightens as they strive to fit into the perfect image of an adult and leave their childish ways. Therefore some adolescents tend to overanalyze every little event or task that happens in their lives. Similar to Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, his grave fear of growing up causes him to cling to the last bit of childhood he has. So, in efforts to preserve his remaining innocence, to delay the inevitable action of entering the adult word, Holden begins to over analyze his actions, create an overwhelming amount of conflicts within himself, and view society through a negative lens. Also like Holden, in Hamlet, Hamlet is equally going through extremely difficult times as his internal conflict is prolonged by his indecisiveness and inability to take action. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, both Hamlet and Holden undergo changes in their lives that cause them to succumb to madness and indecisiveness illustrating the extreme frailty of human nature in that one tragic event can cause inaction, insanity, and alienation within that person.
The journey of adolescence causes emotions to be heightened, teens to get frightened, and leads teenagers to face the struggles of conforming to the societal norms of being an adult. So, as a result, teenagers begin to doubt and overanalyze becoming more vulnerable to inaction when a tragic event occurs. Initially, in Hamlet, Hamlet portrays his indecisive personality more prominently as the plot develops, especially when he is conflicted on what to do in regards to the issue of avenging his father’s death by killing his murderer, Claudius. For instance, after several encounters with the ghost of King Hamlet, Hamlet is fed up with the fact that he is “the son of a murdered father” thus “prompted to [his] revenge by heaven and hell” (II.ii.600-01). Therefore, he is frustrated that all he is able to do is “unpack [his] heart with words and fall a-cursing like a very drab, a scullion,” (II.ii.602-04) exemplifying his continuity in proposing excuses to prevent having to carry out the sin of murder by killing his uncle asserting the fact that Hamlet is faced with the challenge of having to choose between staying loyal to his father by avenging his death and his “belief that murder of any kind is wrong” (Devi), also demonstrating the internal struggle we all experience, so he longs to postpone having to decide on a plan of action for as long as he is able to. Consequently, it is illustrated that Hamlet desires to do what he feels is morally right, but the weakness of his willpower, caused by the sudden death of his father, causes him to put others’ needs above his own, such as that of King Hamlet’s ghost. Hamlet’s tendency to prioritize the needs of others exemplifies his lack of strength to take over his life, letting himself be easily controlled by those he believes are more important than him. Similar to Hamlet, Holden is also faced with over-analyzing his actions and hesitancy as he enters the adult world. In order to preserve what innocence he has left, Holden decides to “get the hell out of [New York]” (132) with his date, Sally Hayes, but as their conversation escalates, he asks himself “why [he] started all that stuff with her” (134) although he ultimately ends up doing nothing, illustrating his internal conflict between what to do to escape the hypocrisies of adulthood, which elicit his fear of ever abandoning his childhood and life as the way he knew it. Therefore, Holden overanalyzes his decisions which provoke his indecisiveness on every choice he makes to pick the path that prevents him from losing his innocence the most. The struggle within Holden and Hamlet, caused by the death of a loved one, allude to the “ethical dilemmas that plague modern people” (Colebrooke) that induce conflict and vacillation to the fragile human soul as Shakespeare and Salinger convey. Not having confidence and a clear definition of what is right and what is wrong, just like Hamlet and Holden, leads one’s willpower to be weak and vulnerable, thus when one tragic event occurs succumbing to indecisiveness and confusion is nearly inevitable.
In addition to the difficulties of transitioning into the adult world, a catastrophic event can also be the catalyst for mental instability. For instance, in Hamlet, Hamlet decides to “put an antic disposition on” (I.v.172) in the face of his friends and family in order to reveal the murderer of his father without giving off the suspicion that he knows the truth. Hamlet believes he carries the responsibility to put his father’s soul to rest, therefore he feels as if there is no other option than to pretend to be a madman to set his plan in motion. This establishes Hamlet’s motive for beginning to buy more into the “madman persona” he displays and developing a “fatalistic viewpoint” (Devi) by constantly seeing the world through a negative lens. The fading line in Hamlet’s character between acting mad and actually being mad exemplifies his “great difficulty dealing with the corrupt world,” therefore he is unable to comprehend people’s motives due to his advancing “idealistic nature” (Devi) of a perfect unhypocritical society proving his unrealistic idea that when one obtains innocence, they won’t take part of an impure world illustrating his increasing delusionality and madness. As Hamlet loses his sanity more and more, he begins to also lose himself “an atmosphere of instability and inevitable destruction” (Colebrooke) which is given off through the incorporation of multiple levels of “trust and deception” (Colebrooke) within the structure of Hamlet to further demonstrate his unstable mentality. Hamlet’s initial personality begins to fade as he no longer lives the life of a normal young adult by leaving college, feeling incompetent to help save Denmark from Claudius’s corrupt rule, and has to carry the burden of avenging King Hamlet’s death. Similarly, Holden Caulfield also begins to obtain a pessimistic point of view upon the world that leads him to the loss of sanity. After Allie’s death Holden felt like a major part of his world was ripped out from him, therefore he begins to relate the idea that adulthood is associated with immense pain because abandonment is the only thing he experienced from catching a glimpse into the adult world. All of these troubles are the primary cause of Holden’s suffering that “result in his erratic behavior” and his “negative attitudes towards people” (Chen) much due to the fact that he is unable to control himself. Holden’s uncontrollable fear ultimately escalates to becoming an obsession of preserving life as he knew it to prevent further change, so in the process he begins to go insane by denying reality and constantly fantasizing about how his life could be if he runs away with Sally or even run away himself to find a mute woman and start a mute family. In both situations, that resulted in the loss of sanity, the common cause was the occurrence of a fatal event that led to the death of a loved one that impacted their frail soul so much that that the overwhelming flood of fear, responsibility, and lack of control caused them to fall into the grasp of disorder and mental instability.
Not only can madness and indecisiveness bring further repercussions of inaction and mental instability, but it can also lead to isolation and alienation of one from society. Exemplified in Hamlet, when Hamlet expressed his concern over the unnatural, corrupt, and gross nature of the marriage between his mother and Claudius because he only married Gertrude for money, power, and the crown. Demonstrated when Hamlet mentioned “but break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue” (I.i.159), he feels extreme loneliness and shame that he bears these melancholy feelings as he grieves for his father’s death when society expects so much more from him due to the fact that he is the prince. Therefore Hamlet begins to believe he does not fit into the societal norms established for him, so he resorts to withholding the anger from the marriage of his mother, his sadness from the loss of a loved one, his disappointment of his mother who blindly married Claudius without realizing his true intentions to drain the kingdom for money and power, and the incompetence he feels toward not being able to act upon fixing the current situation of Denmark with Claudius as king all in order to not steer farther away from the standards set for him as prince by denying to express how vulnerable he is because of the weakening emotions within him – proving his severe alienation from the world to alleviate his pain instead of having the courage to face his problems. Likewise, Holden also resorted to isolating himself from society due to him being “confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior” (189) portraying his efforts to preserve his innocence and avoid having to face the hardships of becoming an adult, for as long as possible, as he realizes other kids his age are already doing confronting them. Holden is so frightened to go into adulthood not only because of the immoral society of the real world but also because he believes transitioning into adulthood would also result in the loss of his connection with Allie and his disappearance. Just like Allie disappeared once he began to mature, Holden believes he will to because his morality and values will disappear as he naturally begins to conform to the norms of adulthood once he is in it. Therefore, Holden struggles to accept the fact that it is inevitable to maintain his childhood forever, so in response he decides to cut himself from the hypocrisies and pain of the adult world through alienation because he is unable to handle the infliction of pain. Holden and Hamlet go through the tragedy of having to suffer through the loss of a loved one that eventually leads to unfathomable hardships that are too much for their weak nature to handle, leading them to resort to isolation from the rest of humanity in efforts to put a stop to their unbearable issues. Like many have done today and in the past, the frail soul and inability of humans to deal with problems make the idea of isolation to end our pain extremely appealing which eventually just results in more damage to the soul in the end, although humanity does it anyway because it is the easiest temporary solution, just like Hamlet and Holden had done to end the suffering they were experiencing which was getting too great to bear.
In essence, the loss of a loved one in both Hamlet and Holden’s lives caused them to undergo a pain too intense for the human soul to bear that led them to mental instability and indecisiveness affirming the immense weakness of human nature since one event has the ability to leads one into inaction, insanity, and isolation. The pattern of human frailty has been seen throughout the history of humankind that can lead one to cause unfathomable damage to not only themselves but also to the rest of society. Attempting to build a nature with more courage, confidence, direction, and determination will give one the willpower to take control of their life with less vulnerability to the evils of humanity, because in the end despite there being about seven billion people in the world we all yearn for the same thing – to love and to be loved – no matter how many times one alienates themselves, procrastinates having to face the realities of the world, or denies their true feelings towards someone. Humanity all faces the hardships of life and learning how to cope and make the best of them will teach one to bring happiness and love into their lives. There.