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In J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye, the narrator, Holden Caulfield, is a young man who is struggling to mature. He realizes that he is failing to take care of himself as well as others who may need it. Holden’s negative view on life alters the way he sees the world. In addition to Holden’s problems, he is unable to accept societal standards of maturity. Holden Caulfield fails to accept the death of his brother and, in which he is desperately seeking human contact and love, his desire to protect innocence prevents him from gaining that interaction. Therefore, his alienation is the source of the main problems that ruin his outlook on adulthood. He invents a fantasy world where adults are all hypocritical phonies living in a corrupt society while he sees childhood as filled with innocence, curiosity, and honesty. Holden wants freedom from the phoniness around him and to escape from a corrupt world.
Holden becomes so opposed to phonies due to his younger brother’s death. Holden has high standards of purity, honesty, kindness which are perceived from Allie’s death. Holden has to put on a mask that no else can be as good or pure as Allie was. His high standard of purity interferes with the way he views phonies. Holden’s strong hatred stems from the standards of what Allie has become in his mind that no one can live up to. Holden’s connection to Allie was the strongest relationship portrayed in the novel. Holden doesn’t accept to move on from Allie because it had become such a burden on him that his refusal to move on affects more than just himself but the others around him. His refusal to move on makes his judgmental attitude and hatred towards adults stronger than it already is.
Holden applies the word phony to anything hypocritical, shallow or inauthentic. He points out the phoniness in the novel through the adult world beginning with the headmaster, Mr.Haas. Holden says, “One of the biggest reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded by phonies. That’s all. They were coming in the goddamn window. For instance, they had this headmaster, Mr. Haas, that was the phoniest bastard I ever met in my life.”(19) Holden explains a phony person as someone who is always putting on an act and has become so good at it one does not realize they are doing it. Holden fears that the phoniness in the adult world will spread to his teenage peers, erasing every bit of innocence left inside them. However, what Holden fails to realize is how phony he is being himself since he frequently lies. He says,
The Navy guy and I told each other we were glad to’ve met each other. Which always kills me. I’m always saying “Glad to have met you” to somebody I’m not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say stuff like that, though. (114)
This is another example of why Holden doesn’t like adults proving that they are phony and just want to do things to seem polite even if it requires lying. Holden acknowledges the fact that you must say stuff one may not mean in order to be civil. He wants everyone to be truthful, but sometimes the truth itself can hurt others feelings. When Holden reveals that in order to coexist we need to pretend reveals his way of critical thinking towards phones. He says here that it is necessary to be a phony but doesn’t forgive people when they need to be phony.
Holden is very critical of himself so he hides behind his ego. He fails to recognize the battle he is fighting within himself. Holden puts no effort into his schoolwork, repeatedly saying he is not in the mood to do it. However, the only subject that Holden does well in is English. Holden describes himself as “quite illiterate, but I read a lot.” (24) While Holden is judgemental of others he’s also very hard on himself. The phoniness Holden sees in others is what prevents him from doing his best in school. He has an instinct to protect the innocence around him by being the catcher in the rye. He feels the responsibility of protecting younger children’s innocence because he felt like he had failed to protect his younger brother Allie. Due to Allie’s death, Holden doesn’t allow himself to grow up. Holden says, “Boy, I felt miserable. 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.” (129) He doesn’t want to move on from Allie. He suffers from the pain of letting go of Allie which doesn’t allow him to live his life. This affects his performance in school and his encounters with sexual relationships to ever happen. This changes his outlook on performing well in school because he cannot move on from not being with Allie. He doesn’t want to grow up without Allie being there so he feels the need to just stop growing up. His past trauma with Allie makes him like a failure and he feels like he shouldn’t allow himself to mess up as an older brother to Phoebe as well.
Holden Caulfield doesn’t like many things in the novel when he becomes pressured by Phoebe to name one thing all he thinks about is James Castle and the nuns. James Castle was harshly assaulted leading him to jump out of a window to commit suicide which Holden thinks about doing a lot in the novel. Holden barely knew James but he felt an apparent closeness symbolizing of how he died in his sweater. Holden created a new image of James Castle to portray him as a hero in his mind. James Castle strikes Holden as symbolic of the cruel death of an innocent. J.D Salinger writes this novel during the time of World War II. He uses the deaths of young children that have typically died from leukemia during the war as a character in the novel and describes the death of James Castle symbolic to the horrific killings of the innocent. The idea of innocence that Holden has become so frantically obsessed with makes him want to be the “catcher in the rye.” Holden says,
Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids and nobody’s around—nobody big, I mean—except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy. (224)
Holden realizes he wants to be the catcher in the rye to protect younger kids from losing their innocence. He sees himself as the catcher in the rye because in the novel he has confronted the realities of growing up like violence, sexuality, and phonies which he doesn’t want to be a part of. Holden is incredibly naive and terrified to face worldly realities. He doesn’t want to accept the world as it is, but also doesn’t want to feel powerless. Readers perceive that Holden thinks of the growing up process as a runaway train, moving too fast in one direction unable to slow it down or stop it making it beyond his control. He can’t do anything to stop or stall it, and he realizes that his wish to save the children is unrealistic and impossible. When Holden sees the “Fuck yous” on the wall in Phoebe’s school trying to erase them and failing to do so makes him realize the impossibility of protecting kid’s innocence forever.
Holden Caulfield does not believe in a world where adults aren’t all corrupt until he meets the nuns. Holden finds the nuns to be pure, honest, and full of innocence that hasn’t been taken away. He likes them because of how selfless they are and aren’t devoted to money like every other adult. Holden sees phoniness everywhere in the adult word and believes that they are superficial that they cannot recognize their own insecurities. Holdens ego and pride make him live in a bubble not wanting to escape. He believes that money can lead to people becoming phony. When Holden first notices the suitcases all he can think about is how much he hates people with cheap suitcases and then proceeds to say,
I hate it when someone has cheap suitcases. It sounds terrible to say it, but I can even get to hate somebody, just looking at them, if they have cheap suitcases with them… For when I was at Elkton Hills I roomed with this boy, Dick Sagle, that had these very inexpensive suitcases…Mine came from Mark Cross, and they were genuine cowhide and all that crap, and I guess they cost quite a pretty penny. But it was a funny thing. Here’s what happened…The day after I put mine under my bed, he took them out and put them back on the rack. The reason he did it, it took me a while to find out, was because he wanted people to think my bags were his. He really did. He was a very funny guy, that way. He was always saying snotty things about them, my suitcases, for instance. He kept saying they were too new and bourgeois. (141)
Holden thinks back to a time when he had better suitcases than the nuns and his roommate Sagel. In this quotation, Holden talks about hating people with cheap suitcases but then feels bad for his roommate. He takes in consideration the fact he didn’t do any good to deserve better suitcases than his roommate making him feel bad for him. He hates how his suitcases made his roommate feel superior to him and their contrast in wealth makes his roommate feel embarrassed for not having nice suitcases, so he pretends they’re his suitcases which make him phonyIt is ironic because he makes a comment on the nuns having cheap suitcases yet simultaneously wishes his roommate wouldn’t resent him for having more better and expensive suitcases than they do.
Holden’s biggest problem in the novel is his inability to take action. His inaction indicates a failure to let go of past trauma like Allie’s death to move forward to a more resilient future. Holden’s refusal to let go of Allie’s memory echoes when he can’t bring himself to let go of a snowball he has made. Instead, he packs more snow into it making the snowball harder and, denser. Holden is so concerned with purity and innocence that he won’t throw a snowball to ruin its perfection. The dense snowball mirrors Holden’s tight knot of emotional anguish towards adulthood and phonies. It also shows his inability to make peace with his brother’s death, and move on, letting himself finally grow up. Holden wants freedom from all the phonies surrounding him in the corrupt society he lives in. The pain and emotional distress from his past disable Holden’s ability to take action. Holden’s vulnerability gives the reader a sense of what he is dealing with. As readers, we can recall his fear of the future stems from his past trauma making the transition to adulthood difficult for him. Holden frequently describes the world of adults as being full of rules and conventions that make people into phonies. Holden’s constant criticism of adults covers up a deeper resistance to growing up.
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