American Literature And Ways They Cultivate Their Own Methods Of Survival Within Their Societies

Many Americans think that people who are different than them in some way or another are inferior. Holden embodies this need for judgement with his feeling that all adults or other adult-like students are “phonies.” He thinks that because they are different than him, they are less than him. Holden rarely sees an adult that he does not think of as a phony, “It was very phony- I mean him being such a big snob and all” (Ch.12 pg. 110). Even though Holden admits that this piano player is very talented and humble he thinks that he is still a phony. This gives good insight into how Holden sees people around him. Like many people in America, Holden jumps to conclusions and judges people who are different than

This theme is a major literary catalyst in the novel and in the life of Holden. The term “Phony” is used 44 times and through Holden’s perspective, the word is used to describe everything he dislikes about people. This, however, is a huge contradiction because he fails to recognize that he is a phony himself. He is hypocritical and doesn’t realize his own ‘phoniness.’ Holden says in chapter 3 he is “the most terrific liar he has ever met.” This is a central contradiction since he spends a great amount of time in the story stating how much he loathes “phonies.” Holden hates it when anyone is insincere and less than truthful with him, but he tells lies throughout the book to almost everyone he encounters. Even though his deceptions aren’t true and often times are unkind and fiendish, he is nothing less than a phony himself. Holden is convinced that everyone is phony mainly because he believes the world is simple and that everyone should be as innocent and honest as children are. “I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera.” (Chapter 3, sentence one). Holden is an example that the world isn’t as simple as he would like it to be. The fact that he is a liar himself, makes the world he conceptualizes to be

He is not intensely preoccupied with academic achievement like many more modern teenagers, having failed out of several prestigious preparatory schools, but he is clearly intelligent and tends to dwell on“heavy” topics like death and loss of innocence. His cynicism and sensitivity, in addition to the trauma he experiences from losing his brother Allie, suggest that he has depression or another untreated mental illness, an interpretation which is common among readers and supported by Holden’s visit with a psychotherapist at the end of the novel. Despite the risks he faces through having an untreated mental illness, shown when he is warned that he is “riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall” through self-destructive behavior, the conformist culture and social niceties of the 1950s prevented him from being able to discuss his thoughts for a large portion of the novel. (186) This culture, specifically the “phony” prep schools, is clearly toxic for Holden and likely contributed heavily towards his negative mental state, and therefore the negative image he often has of

I felt so depressed, you can't imagine. What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud, to Allie. I do that sometimes when I get very depressed. I keep telling him to go home and get his bike and meet me in front of Bobby Fallon's house.”(Salinger) This quote clearly shows Holden isn’t over the death of his brother. He loved Allie and still, when he gets very depressed, talks to him. If Holden had received proper treatment earlier for his depression and was able to talk with someone about the death of his brother, he would most likely not failed out of numerous schools. He wasn’t failing; he was trying to cope.

And so, Holden left school planning to spend some time on his own in New York City, where he lives. On the train to New York, Holden meets a mother of his fellow Pencey student. Though he thinks that this student is a complete “bastard”, he tells a woman made-up stories about her son. He lied to the woman. But lying to others is also a kind of phoniness, right? A type of deception that indicates insensitivity or even cruelty. Holden proves that he is just guilty of phoniness as the people he criticizes.

As grief consumed Holden since, he never could get over his brother’s death. He says, “I don’t care if it’s a sad goodbye or a bad goodbye, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse”(Salinger 7). Holden didn’t get any sort of goodbye from Allie because of his untimely passing. He was full of rage and hurt his hand which put him in the hospital, missing Allie’s funeral. Holden refusing to become an adult and desperately trying to cling to his younger self is a sign of his past experience with change. When Allie left without a goodbye, it changed Holden’s perception of the world around

Moreover, even though Holden sees others as "phonies", he, himself, cannot even live up to his own unreasonably high standards and expectations. Since he cannot live up to his own acceptations, he is unable to connect with people, and withdraws into his own world. In other words, even though Holden might try not to be a phony, in actuality, he is. This is a problem in his life because he is very judgmental, and makes snap conclusions without taking the whole person and his/her complexities into consideration. Holden doesn't take into account that he is judging a human being with feelings and emotions. He considers one aspect about a person's personality and portrays it as his/her character. For example, he believes that Ackley is a pimply guy; he doesn't consider that he could perhaps be a nice guy. Overall, Holden is a "phony" himself, if he doesn't learn to accept himself and others, he will never be happy. His ignorance to make hasty judgments is an issue because Holden distinguishes "phonies" to be adults, and yet Holden doesn't want to enter adulthood, which is another problem that he encounters.

In the bildungsroman Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger employs the struggle of individuality, inevitable maturation, and the childhood corruption of adulthood to reveal Holden’s alienation from society.

As much as society wants to deny it, Holden was right: everyone is a phony in one way or another. Holden used the word phony to describe society and to isolate himself, but he failed to realize that he is the biggest phony of them all. To Holden, nearly every person he knows is phony and he uses this as an excuse to be alone. However, as much as he hates phoniness, he himself is a phony and cannot come to terms with it. This teaches the reader that phoniness is a part of life, whether we like it or not.

The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D Salinger, was published on July 16, 1951 and although widely criticized it is also known for being incredibly popular. Although criticized for the casual tone and the discussion of adolescent’s sexuality, many reader’s found themselves connecting with our narrator. The novel surrounds itself around the narrative of Holden Caulfield, a 16 year old with a serious case of depression who is unwilling to mature enough to fit into society. The story is set around the 1950’s and takes place during the three-day period after his expulsion from yet another private school. We follow Holden through his journey from Pennsylvania to his “home” in Manhattan, and the reader is able to see the way Holden sees things and

1. Although Holden so passionately despise “phonies”, he himself can be categorized as a “phony”. By definition, a phony individual is someone who is fraudulent and hypocritical and while there are a lot of “phonies” in the world, what Holden does not realize is that he himself is an even bigger “phony” than the people he accuse of being “phonies”. In his mind, he imagines a utopia where people aren’t corrupt from greed, lies, alcohol, and lust. But the world he lives in is full of all of the above, and Holden’s hatred towards society is the foundation of his hatred towards “phonies”. He hates the phoniness that exists in the world, and that society is run by adults. He does not trust adults because does not understand them; adults are responsible for every part of their lives and his immature mind cannot grasp the concept of responsibility. Holden is a phony for being disgusted when he encounters a curse word written in a school bathroom, yet he himself curses often. When he visited his little sister Phoebe in the middle of the night and he was describing what Pencey was like, Phoebe interrupted him to tell him to “Don’t swear so much,” (Salinger, 168). But when he was at Phoebe’s school, he says, “...While I was sitting down, I saw something that drove me crazy. Somebody’d written “Fuck you” on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy,” (201). It drove him

As Holden develops in life he finds ways to contain his childhood innocence. He continues to run away from school because he sees his peers getting older and leaving him behind. He has a problem mentally processing the fact that he will have to find a purpose so he runs away from it and find small ways to take him back to when he was a kid.He knows things are changing, but he wants “certain things to stay the way they are.” (136). Holden can’t understand human nature and while he’s going through

“The Catcher in the Rye” is a book where the main character and narrator Holden Caulfield spends a weekend around New York loitering after getting ousted from Pencey High School. While loitering around the town, he contacts people he once knew despite his actual feelings of everyone being a phony besides a very few select individuals that he actually cares about. This book tends to focus on Holden’s true feelings for people despite putting on a slightly different act when they are around. Eventually he always ended up showing his derogatory thoughts through expressive words and actions.

As a “gateway drug for a generation of teenagers,” Jerome David Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, is a world-renowned phenomenon (Teicholz). On the surface it highlights a teenager’s mentally challenging journey of painfully trying to transition into adulthood, while also wanting to reject the adult world and seek refuge in his idealistic childhood recollections. However, these ideas can be analyzed on a deeper level, not only to better understand the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, but also to acknowledge the repressed or latent feelings of the book’s reclusive author, J.D. Salinger. A fictitious character is more than a figment of the author’s imagination; the character is a “product of the author’s experiences” (Polukis 4-5). Since a character in a work of fiction is a cumulative representation of the author’s experiences, readers can use the pretentious character of Holden to scrutinize the unvented ideas of the author, J.D Salinger. In fact, Salinger mirrors many elements of his real life in The Catcher in the Rye and bases several characteristics of Holden off of himself. Similarities include that Salinger was born in New York City, had unstable school conditions, left one or more schools due to academic troubles, attended the McBurney School alluded to in The Catcher in the Rye, was atypical, valued innocence, and wished to be isolated from society (Ducharme). Furthermore, in an article recognizing Salinger’s death, it states, “Holden is dead. Long Live

In J.D Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the author illustrates Holden Caulfield’s journey after leaving Pencey State and traveling to New York from Holden’s first-person point of view. This journey he partakes in is one of self-discovery and acceptance, ultimately searching for his own self worth. Though Holden has little to no character development throughout the novel, it is still difficult to fully address who he is. Stemming from his own desire to live in his childhood state of mind and tendencies, Holden creates a complex and disputable persona that challenges who readers believe his is. Due to his unreliable narration, disorganized thoughts, foul behavior, and immoral decisions made throughout the story, it is unclear as to whether or not Holden even knows himself. Through an analysis of personal traits and issues, relationships, his current situations, and the symbolism, themes, and motifs seen throughout the novel, readers are able to begin the understanding of who Holden Caulfield is.