As Eugene McNamara stated in his essay "Holden Caulfield as Novelist", Holden, from J.D. Salinger's novel Catcher in the Rye, had encountered a long series of betrayals since he left Pencey Prep. These disappointments led him through the adult world with increasing feelings of depression and self-doubt, ultimately leading to his nervous breakdown. Holden's first betrayal was that of his memory and innocence by a selfish peer. At Pencey Prep, he shared a room with a student named Stradlater; the epitome of a teenage athlete. Stradlater was openly very vain; as Holden said while watching Stradlater look at himself in the mirror, "he was madly in love with himself." He thought he was the most handsome man in the Western Hemisphere” (27). Because of his inflated ego and good looks, Stradlater thought he would take the breath away from any girl he wanted. To Holden, he admitted that the girl of the hour was a “Jean Gallagher” (31). Here's the betrayal: this "Jean" and the Jane with whom Holden had spent his childhood summers playing a nice game of checkers on the porch were one and the same. Holden had ...