Holden Caulfield is a very complicated, usually hard to understand, and always troubled character in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. In the very beginning of the novel, when Holden begins his narration of his experiences, the reader is slightly swayed by Holden's opinions, thoughts, and words. And because their is no counter-narrator introduced until later in the novel, the reader tends to believe the things that Holden is saying, or at least slightly understand why he thinks that in that certain way. But Holden is an extremely unreliable narrator because of the way his mind works, and also because of some of the issues he has had in his relatively short life.
One major issue introduced in the novel is Holden's mental breakdown. In the novel, Holden is just recovering from a nervous breakdown, and this is obvious in some of his behaviors. Holden tries to save children from having to grow up and lose the innocence and simplicity that comes along with childhood, but when he realizes this is impossible it is almost like he loses all will to live. Holden's biggest idea in life is that childhood is everything good in the world. He thinks that children are the only truly good people, and he wants to protect them from the lies and phoniness that he is convinced comes along with becoming an adult. Because of his realization that his ideas are impossible, Holden cannot deal with reality and loses it, practically becoming insane.
Another issue in Holden's life is dealing with other people around him. Most kinds of social interactions are very hard for Holden to handle, and he has a bad habit of judging people before he even gets to know them. Since he thinks all adults are phony and corrupt, he has a very hard time with opening himself up to people and trusting them. Holden is a very insecure character, and he is very noticeably immature as well.
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