Facticity, Angst, and Despair in Two 1950s Stories
Oh, boy, I sure did love the five paragraph essay last year. (Actually, I hated it, my teacher just forced it on us / didn't teach us anything else.) This one's actually kind of fun, it connects The Catcher in the Rye with existentialism. It also throws in this weird movie called Dead Poets Society because that was the assignment.
Another writing dump from Sophomore (last) year with the horrible Tasha Graff. I wrote all these in a single week when faced with a failing grade. I think they turned out... alright.
Existentialism is a philosophy invented around the turn of the 20th-century, but it became widely popular just after World War II - the time period of both The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger, and Dead Poets Society, by Tom Schulman and directed by Peter Weir. The philosophy centers around authenticity - the living of your life true to your spirit and your values. The struggle for self-determination is closely tied to coming-of-age, but is more generalizable and nuanced, and it is through this lens it is best to view both works about childhood. Two central concepts of existentialism are those of Angst and Despair - two opposing but centrally related to the building of an identity - and these are represented in each of the works. The Catcher in the Rye is characterized by angst - Holden Caulfield becomes fearfully aware of his own self-determination and its implications. Meanwhile, Neil Perry is faced with Despair - the shattering of identity when a degree of self-determination is limited. Holden stands at the edge of the cliff realizing that nothing is holding him back from jumping, while Neil is scaling the cliff face and has his harness cut off from him - in each case, a sense of Facticity, one’s identity based on their past, could have saved them, but Neil does not find his identity in time, while Holden finds it just in time to step back from the cliff and evaluate his options.
The story of The Catcher in the Rye is driven entirely by Holden’s choices, and the book is made by his accompanying thoughts. At any given moment Holden simply exists, and he is searching, desperately, for some sort of direction. His actions are meaningless, directionless, and without consideration. Holden sees the cliff and, paralyzed by the possibility of jumping, jumps. As if to challenge his self-determination, he takes his life into his hands and makes every choice the way that most proves to himself his autonomy. One may wonder why a story ostensibly about coming-of-age spends so much time on the repeated “poor” choices of Holden. In fact, the story is exactly about these choices - he has to explore his freedom before he can find his identity and responsibility. In one of the most candid reflections, he talks about his reasoning in telling his friend about his plan of running away. “If you want to know the truth, I don’t even know why I started all that stuff with her. I mean about going away somewhere, to Massachusetts and Vermont and all…. The terrible part, though, is that I meant it when I asked her. That’s the terrible part. I swear to God I’m a madman” (134). The plan itself is an expression of his radical autonomy: he’s already run away and gone crazy in New York; it’s not escapism but freedom that he desires. Holden really wants to live authentically, and it’s seen in his feelings about “phonies.” He sees adults all around him who grew up, lost that freedom, and live inauthentic lives. It terrifies him, because he wants to live authentically. When Phoebe asks him if he wants to be a lawyer, he contemplates whether it would be authentic. “How would you know if you did it because you really wanted to save guys’ lives, or because you did it because what you really wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer” (172). Holden’s angst comes from the staggering reality of freedom, but also the desire to get it right.
On the other hand, the characters in Dead Poets Society are introduced to existential freedom in a guided, gradual way and are thus safer from angst, but Neil Perry suffers from despair. The teacher John Keating teaches them to carpe diem, seize the day. He essentially encourages them to explore their freedom and do things to find authenticity - a noble cause. Neil Perry finds that he loves acting, and he builds his entire identity on it. He cares so much about it that he lies to the producer and his parents. This indicates the fracturing of any facticity he had in favour of this all-encompassing pseudo-identity - Neil was not the kind to easily lie. This comes shattering down when his parents tell him he cannot act. A pseudo-identity breaks easily, while a true identity is strong. This is so true that existential theory says that so long as a person’s identity relies on something singular that can be broken, the person is already in a state of despair. When told he cannot act, Neil says, “I’m trapped.” The classic problem that leads to suicide, Keating tries to assure him, but misses what he really means. Neil doesn’t think he’s trapped because he has to confront his dad - he’s trapped because he sees no direction for himself. His facticity is thrown into tumult and he is left with nothing to live for.
In childhood, facticity is particularly dangerous, as it is often not fully developed. As we grow up, we create a history for ourselves, viewed through the lense of our perceived identity. The world as seen by existentialism is absurd and without intrinsic meaning: all options are open to everyone. The absurd gives a person unwieldy freedom and also strips them of responsibility. In the face of these two paralyzing truths, how can you keep sane? Why do people not act individually anarchically? Existential theory provides facticity as an answer: that accumulated experience creates a sense of identity for yourself, which philosophers stress must be taken together with the present for an authentic lifestyle. However facticity provides responsibility and authenticity to a person. Both Neil and Holden struggle, as teenagers, to grapple with their facticity. Holden struggles with accepting and building a facticity, recognizing the accompanying responsibility and limitations of freedom. However he is able to survive with the little facticity he has. “What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would’ve done it, too, if I’d been sure somebody’d cover me up as soon as I landed. I didn’t want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory” (104). His understanding of the implications of suicide come from an (admittedly odd) sense of self which holds him back from jumping: his perception of others as inferior (and presumably other unspoken feelings about suicide itself). Neil struggles with building a sense of self that is compliant with the physical world’s facticity. He ends up in a similar state to Holden: with crumbled facticity he’s essentially left with no facticity. Nothing inhibits him from killing himself like did Holden. In the end, both stories are about someone growing up too soon: given the responsibility and freedom we take from them before their facticity develops, before their facticity develops.
Often “existential angst” is thrown around as a condescending term, but in reality this mindset is merely condescension of children. The limitations and overwhelmingness of freedom are quite real, and the building of facticity is a central process to development. Those who make fun of Holden or Neil may have forgotten or distanced themselves from the reality of being lost in a vast space of options. Perhaps the sharp divide - especially between generations - in appreciation of both stories comes from this same divide in self-understanding. Those who condescend those who wander might wish to look up at the sky at night, be reminded of the vastness and absurdity of space and time, and close their eyes - briefly seeing their own life as an extension of the same empty, complex chasm.