Holden Caulfield Phony

Holden Caulfield is a quick-witted, brutally honest boy to everyone, except himself. He is constantly projecting unsatisfactory traits he possesses onto others, especially his tendency to be “phony.” Holden first uses the word phony to describe his teacher, Mr.Spencer, after he uses the word “grand” to describe Holden’s parents. Holden says, “Grand. There’s a word I really hate. It’s a phony. I could puke every time I hear it” (Salinger 9). He hates Mr.Spencer’s choice of words because it is meant to remind Holden of the status of his parents, not to show respect for the Caulfield family. Also. the word “grand” is used to initiate something Holden hates, moral lectures. At first, Holden was under the impression that his meeting was going

The novel begins with sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield who is recounting two days back in December in the form of a long flashback. Holden has been expelled numerous times, his most recent, Pencey Prep. After getting into a fight with his roommate, Stradlater, Holden leaves school before he must return home on Wednesday to confront his family of his expulsion. Once he enters the train heading to New York he meets the mother of one his classmates from Pencey. Holden then misleads his classmates mother into believing that her son is popular among the students who attend Pencey. When he arrives in New York he encounters strangers dancing in a hotel, a prostitute, nuns, an old girlfriend, and his younger sister Phoebe. While Holden’s journey continues

Holden Caulfield the protagonist of the story. He writes story away from home where he was sent for a therapy. He didn’t talk about his childhood, he mentioned brother D. B. who is a Hollywood writer. He dislike him because D. B. has sold out to Hollywood, chose a career in literature to make wealth in the film industry. He begins to tell about his breakdown, it started when he departed from Pencey Prep, a famous school he attended in Agerstown, Pennsylvania.

The book is narrated by the main character, Holden Caulfield, while he is in a mental hospital or a sanitarium of an unspecified location. The book is set around the 1950's while Holden is sixteen years old. The narration begins on Saturday after classes end in the school, Pencey Prep school, in which Holden attends. Pencey is Agerstown, Pennsylvania and Holden has failed four out of five classes leading to his expulsion. Pencey is the fourth school that Holden has been expelled out of because of him failing classes. Currently watching a sporting event on top of a nearby hill that is overlooking the field of play, Holden decides to visit his history teacher, Spencer, that he is fond of. While he does go there, Holden does not stay long because

The novel is immediately addressed with a bitter tone, projected by the narrator. The beginning sentence of the novel, “...what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth,” possibly foreshadows a tragic event that has happened in the narrator’s life thus far. The narrator, Holden, goes on to introduce his brother, who has apparently been sucked into Hollywood and has recently proclaimed a shallow lifestyle full of fortunes, whom Holden later addresses as a “prostitute”. Holden continues to introduce negative events that have recently happened in his life: losing the equipment

In the beginning of the story we get to meet a character named Holden. A character with a weird personality. The number of readers who have been able to identify with Holden and make him their hero is something that I think is weird. Holden has a discontent and a vivid way of expressing life which makes him resonate powerfully with readers who come from backgrounds completely different from his. It is tempting to inhabit his point of view and just deduce what is wrong with him. The obvious signs that we see in Holden are troubled and unreliable narrator are manifold. He fails out of four schools, he manifests complete apathy towards his future therefore he is hospitalized and gets check ups by a psychoanalyst for an unspecified complaint.

Holden Caulfield, the main protagonist of the book is a young, emotional, and a damaged person. He faces difficulty with the death of his brother, his family being disappointed about his work in school, and not only his innocence, but the innocence of his sister, Pheobe. Holden doesn’t like to acknowledge, but we know many people in his life care about his well being and his success and happiness. The issue Holden is dealing with is prevalent throughout the entire book leading up until the end, and that is his innocence. He can’t accept growing up and is scared of reality. This is crucial for the book, not just to captivate the reader with relatable narration and emotions, but for the forward movement of the story and plot.

Holden Caulfield is a seventeen year old junior who was kicked out of Pencey Prep school in Pennsylvania for failing his academics. He lives in New York with his father, mother, and sister, Phoebe Caulfield who Holden adores for being so mature for her age. He has an older brother named D.B. who lives in Hollywood as a screenwriter and a brother named Allie who died from leukemia. Holden is very picky in taste when it comes to books- his favorite author is Ring Lardner, D.B., and war novels. Holden has a deep hatred for watching movies. He tries to quit smoking, but has an addiction to cigarettes (also drinking) which affects his health. Holden is the manger of the fencing team and is considered to be well off. He is a liar- he agrees with

Holden starts his story from a mental hospital. “Im not going to tell you my whole goddamn autobiography or anything. Just this madman stuff that happened to me last christmas” says Holden. Holden is a sixteen-year-old junior who has just been expelled for academic failure from a school called Pencey Prep. After being expelled from your school every kid in america must feel pretty bad about themselves he was like all. Holden dint really fit in well with the other kids. He always though of the world as a bunch of phonies. The amount of criticism he gave the school was high class. He hated everyone except a handful of people. Holden's condition starts of alright, somewhere in the middle he hits rockbottom but fortunately by the end everything is good for him. Holden is literally about to crash. Near the beginning as well as the end of the novel, he feels that he will disappear or fall into an abyss when he steps off a curb to cross a street. Sometimes when this happens, he calls on his dead brother, Allie, for help. Part of Holden’s collapse is due to his inability to come to get over his brothers death.

In “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger, there's an idea about authenticity and phoniness always bothering the main character, Holden Caulfield. The author shows how Holden tries to find real friendships in a world where many people act fake, which is something we all deal with, trying to stay true to who we are while fitting in. We're always trying to stay true to who we are while also trying to fit in with what's expected of us. Holden's experiences hit home for us because they're like our own search for honesty in a world that can feel fake and phony. It’s not just something in the story, it’s like a puzzle we all have to figure out in our own lives, navigating the balance between staying true to ourselves and fitting into societal

In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger uses Holden Caufield’s physical appearance and actions to enhance the theme of the loss of childhood innocence and the phoniness of society. During Holden’s visit to Phoebe, he recites a poem by Robert Burns to her and tells her that he wants to be the person who will “catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff… if they don’t look where they’re going… I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all” (Salinger 173). Throughout Holden’s time living alone in the adult world, he consistently identifies ‘phonies’, or people who aren’t genuine and full of themselves. He strongly dislikes this attitude and and wants to ‘catches’ or help children to not grow up and falloff of the cliff of adulthood and become a

In J.D. Salinger’s novel titled, “The Catcher in the Rye” the main character named Holden Caulfield tells us about his life adventures after he got expelled from his previous high school, Pencey. Caulfield learns many things from his adventures and learns important life lessons. You see, Holden is a complex character who exhibits many traits. For one, Holden is a hypocrite; he believes one thing when he really does not. For example, he preaches that people should be themselves and not be “phony” but yet he fakes his name most of the time and tries to be someone he is not. Although Holden is a hypocrite, he stands up for his morals, and he is very empathetic. Holden cares for others, even though it might seem as if he does not. Holden is quite remarkable because he is willing to do anything if it means that he gets to stand up for what he believes in. He is also a remarkable person due to the fact that he learns from his past and tries not to make the same mistakes again. You see,

The main character, Holden Caulfield, tells about his life before and after he was kicked out from Pencey Prep. The novel was told in first person through the eyes of the narrator, Holden. He recalls the events as a series of flashbacks placing the setting of the story in his mind.

The world is full of phonies. This is one of the views that I have in common with Holden Caulfield. To best describe phonies I would say they are shallow, superficial people who choose to embrace life's mundane demands and all march to the same beat. I choose to be solitary over having to engage with phony people because most people do, say, and think only what is socially acceptable and cliche making it hard to relate to them, and the very few people who do understand this different mindset are not always available. Holden and I isolate ourselves from others due to the lack of people willing to understand this different mindset.

Teenage angst is an inevitable disease. The Catcher in The Rye conveys these tormented times rather well with the situations Holden Caulfield finds himself in. His self-fulfilling prophecies and everyday contradictions put everything into perspective, relating to most young adults, including myself.