How Does Holden Get Phony

Another big problem Holden faces throughout his journey in life was how much he struggled to keep his innocence. After Holden was able to get his letter delivered to his sister, Phoebe, asking her to meet him at the Museum of art, he decides to explore the museum while he waits while he looks at all displays he states, “The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole ... Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat on this time” (Salinger 121). This shows that Holden likes the Natural History museum because, no matter what else changed in his life, it was always the same: it was like a freeze-frame picture of his own childhood, a safe spot he could always come back to. This also depicts that Holden has always found a way around times

At the museum that Holden visits while he is waiting for his younger sister Phoebe to come meet him, Holden gets asked by a group of young boys if he knew where the mummies are. Holden tells the boys where the mummies are because he was younger he would go when to see them. Surprisingly, Holden knows a great deal about the mummies, more than he did on his test at Pency. The museum is a reflection of how much he knows and his childhood because Holden really knows more than he thinks he does. Holden would visit the museum as a child with his school to learn about many different things. To Holden, the best part about the museum was, “everything always stayed right where it was” (121) Holden must learn to accept that not everything can always stay right where they are, things must change in order to move forward. His childhood is important to him because it was a source of good

Who is Really the Phony? Throughout the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger the main character, Holden, often calls out other characters as being phonies. However, Holden may be the biggest phony of them all. He is a phony because he always lies, calls out others for being phonies and, what he says is never what he thinks.

In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger captures a teenage boy’s struggle with adolescence. The story is told from the perspective of Holden Caulfield, who embarks on a journey to New York City after being expelled from his boarding school. He meets new people and has experiences that reveal his personality and interactions. In the story, Holden is “fed up” with the world, he feels that everything and almost every person he encounters is “phony,” (a word often used by Holden). Anyone who Holden perceives to have affectations, he deems to be different from him. These people appear to be socially intelligent and are generally accepted into society, unlike Holden. Although Holden is very judgemental, he fails to recognize his own phoniness as well. So,

Almost all the differences he goes on to describe are negative, like kids getting diseases or parents fighting at home. This signifies to the reader Holden’s growing anger and fear of change, and the symbol he sees in the museum of an ideal world that never changes. But, Holden doesn’t think of himself as part of this world. Holden repeatedly uses the word “you”, breaking the fourth wall. He says “you could go there [the museum] a hundred thousand times.” By speaking in the second person, “you,” Holden further distances himself from the process of change, making the reader the one who is experiencing the events listed. He begins each of the four phrases with “or” as if he is racing to think of another horrible example of change. Salinger’s stream-of-consciousness writing style and rhythm of sentences enables the reader to fully grasp Holden’s growing agitation and fear of change. Holden ends the passage by declaring that he does not know how to explain it any further and that he does not even feel like trying anymore. This abrupt ending of the passage also confirms the sensitivity of the topic for

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

As his thoughts about the Museum of Natural History demonstrate, Holden fears change and is overwhelmed by complexity. He wants everything to be easily understandable and eternally fixed, like the statues of Eskimos and Indians in the museum. He is frightened because he is guilty of the sins he criticizes in others, and because he can’t understand everything around him. But he refuses to acknowledge this fear, expressing it only in a few instances—for example, when he talks about sex and admits that “[s]ex is something I just don’t understand. I swear to God I don’t” (Chapter 9).

This song speaks volumes as to what Holden is trying to find in life. He wants to be happy, but he is often depressed with his life. In the story it is revealed that the museum is his indeed “happy place”. In the story it reads “I get very happy when I think about it. Even now” (120). Holden admires the fact that nothing in the Museum changes and wishes that the museum could represent how his life would go. Simple, and manageable all characteristics he wishes he could trace into his real life. The song brings this all together because no matter how long it’s been since Holden’s last visit it still gives him the same spark of happiness as the last time. Being happy is definitely the main point of this

In need of a lie, Holden would pull one swiftly that fit his certain situation. In J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Cather in the Rye, Holden was “the most terrific liar” (19) you would ever read about. Holden Caulfield “was sixteen” (11) when lying about his in his story. He makes false impressions about his age to get away with doings that he may not be enabled to do as a sixteen year old. When having an interaction via the phone with Faith Cavendish, a woman that Holden had gotten the address from “a guy [he] met” (71).

As strongly as society wants to deny it, Holden was right; everyone is a phony in one way or another. Throughout The Catcher in the Rye Holden uses the word phony to describe the society around him and as a mechanism for his own isolation, but he fails to realize that he is the biggest phony of them all. Holden clearly perceives the insincerity of everyone around him and is nauseated by it; but despite his revulsion he still ends up being a phony himself. He reveals to the reader that even if someone does not want to be a fraud, and has attempted not to be, they cannot help it; everyone is a phony in the end.

Holden is overwhelmed by change, and it leads him to prefer things that stay the same or do not change. We see that when Holden goes to the museum that he realizes that the only thing that ever changes is the people. At the museum the exhibits never

As Holden enters the Museum of National History, his fears change into difficulty. He likes everything easily understandable. He is afraid to admit fear but only admits it in a few instances such as “Sex is something I just don’t understand. I swear to God I don’t.” Instead of facing adulthood, he traps himself in his own little childhood world thinking about his dream job, catching little kids that are about to fall off a rye cliff.

Almost anyone who reads the novel The Catcher in The Rye is waiting for Holden to have a huge mental breakdown, and that’s what occurred in the short story. This story is set about 5 years into the future, with the reader having no idea what actually happened to Holden. Perhaps as a result of Holden’s medication, Holden starts to hallucinate as he is in the hospital. His subconscious mind starts to reiterate the things of his past, especially his traumatizing experiences during his teen years. Intermixing one of the better symbols of his adolescence, Sally, along with some of the terrifying realizations of self-doubt, phoniness, chaos, and superficiality in the world, Holden creates a hallucination that encompasses many parallels, symbolisms, and hints in which the reader has an intuition that Sally might not be Sally after all.

Change is inevitable and is a constant phase that Holden cannot conceptualize. Holden's fear of change can be exemplified by the Museum of Natural History. Like the museum, he wants everything to be unchanging and as simple as possible. He talks about the immutable statues by saying, "Certain things they should stay the way they are... I know it's impossible, but it's too bad anyway" (Salinger 122). By admitting his fear of change, Holden also reveals another important aspect of his life: his loss of childhood innocence. The only thing he can talk about without contempt is kids. Allie, his deceased brother, is continuously mentioned in the book, as well as the many interactions Holden has with Phoebe. Although he is continuously deriding others around him, he humbly admits to his sister that the only thing he could envision doing is saving kids, "What I have to do - I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff [...] I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd like to be" (Salinger 173). Holden's love for kids is the only

Holden also loses his innocence when he accepts the inevitability of growing up. When he visits the Natural History Museum, Holden notes that the exhibits