The Anxiety of The Main Character Holden Caulfield in J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in The Rye

Character in literary works represents the psychological experience of human being in general. One of psychological experience that human feel is anxiety. The researcher intends to analyze the anxiety in J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in The Rye as the objects of the study . This study includes the analysis of the main character Holden Caulfield’s anxiety and the other characters’s role contribute in constructing Holden’s anxiety. Holden, in this novel is full of anxious feeling. Holden’s personality in portraying the anxiety tended to negative direction. Tyson’s theory of psychoanalysis has been used to analyze Holden’s personality. This theory can be applied to analize human behavior from the human object, while in a literary work analyze the text which represents human character itself, although the embodiment of fictional character. It is not suggesting that Holden Caulfield is a real people, but he represents the psychological experience of human being in general. The data were obtained directly from The Catcher in The Rye. It means that the text contained in the novel as source data in this analysis. The researcher uses objective approach in investigating and analyzing the data. The researcher uses this approach to analyze the structure of character in the novel, because literature stand for itself. Therefore, the method that used in this research is structural analysis method. The intrinsic that is the structural analysis method is to dismantle and elaborate the interrelatedness of literary works that results a comprehensive meaning. The researcher focused to indirect method in analyzes the few cited like dialogue or narration as the data that described how Holden’s anxiety showed in the story. From the analyzed data, the researcher finds some of psychological problem that shows Holden’s anxiety indirectly. Furthermore, the researcher show and analyzes how other characters’s role in constructing Holden’s anxiety. The conclusion is Holden’s anxiety showed by constructed as a character which is have a psychological problems such as unsecured feeling, negative thinking and bad mentality. Besides, the other characters have a role in constructing Holden’s anxiety. The other characters are: 1) Family: Phoebe and Parents. 2) Friends: Stradlater, Jane, Sally, Faith Cavendish and Mr. Antonili. 3) Complementary characters: Mr. Haas, Ernest’ mom, Taxi driver and Lift guard. The conclusion is based on the data analysis which is conducted by the researcher. As the suggestion, the researcher hopes that this graduating paper can be a reference for those who are interested in novel, especially for students of English Department