Holden Caulfield Phony

When Phoebe asks Holden what he likes, he replies by saying, "I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'" I said. "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'd 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." (Salinger 173). The top of the cliff symbolizes the innocent child life, but below the cliff symbolizes the adult world of phoniness. Holden wants to catch the children before the run off into the phony adult world. In conclusion, Holden wants to be the “catcher in the rye” as he wants to catch children’s innocence before they fall into the phony adult

The narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an adolescent child from New York named Holden Caulfield. At the beginning of the story, Holden departs from “what may be the last in a series of schools that have failed to inspire, nurture, or support him” (Aubry). Holden leaves a place which benefits him, he can not see in the moment how much this school benefits him and will lead him into a good future. Following his departure, Holden can be found wandering the streets of New York, sleep deprived and alone. Everyone he encounters in these next few days is described and labeled as “phony” by Caulfield. Holden struggles to find people in his world that are authentic and worthy of relationship. The novel expresses a struggling individual’s alienation in a society where materialism, shallowness and insincerity are prioritized among people. Throughout the novel, many voices emerge: youth's voices, adult’s

Throughout the story Holden emphasizes his love for childhood innocence. In a passage he says “The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the golden ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything.” (Salinger 211) This immediately points to his affinity for innocence and not having the limits of being and adult. The

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

The Catcher in the Rye In J.D. Salinger's novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the narrator's statements and actions contribute to an understanding of the themes through many different ways. Holden goes through a lot in the novel and gives off many messages about life and people. Three themes where about isolation, phoniness, and innocence. Isolation is one of the themes that get shown through Holden’s actions in the novel. For example he says "People never notice anything".

This character is going to tell it like it is, and he does. The most powerful emotional standpoint in the story is when Holden goes to his sister’s elementary school to deliver her a note. While he is there, he discovers two words scribbled on the wall. “Fuck you.” Most people would look at that and think nothing of it. Some would bow their heads in shame at the person who thought it was funny. Others might laugh. Not Holden. He did not think about the normal persons response to the note. He thought about the child’s response. About how a little kid is going to see that seemingly meaningless phrase and wonder what it means; about how some dirty kid would explain what it meant; and about the person who wrote it and how they are destroying the childhood of everyone who reads the ‘harmless’ graffiti. This section takes the reader to the door of Holden’s mind. It is at this point that one truly understands his emotions.

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,

Holden wants to be the catcher in the rye and save the children from falling off the cliff. This cliff, however, is the real world, and Holden himself is afraid of it so he wants to protect children from it. This is also demonstrated when Holden visits his sister 's school and sees swears written on the wall. This makes Holden very mad, "It drove me damn near crazy. I thought of how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they 'd wonder what the hell it meant…But I rubbed it out anyway, finally"(201). Holden was able to protect the children for a short while but a few moments later he sees the same thing written on the wall again. Only this time it is scratched in with a knife or something and Holden is unable to rub it away like before and realizes "It 's hopeless, anyway…it 's impossible" (202) he indicates here that growing up and facing certain reality is inevitable. Holden finally realizes that he can 't protect the kids from the real world when he watches Phoebe ride a carrousel at the zoo. "All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring…this thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let

Between the bars, prostitutes, and perversities that Holden encounters during his time in New York City, it swiftly becomes clear that the adult world that Holden is forced to live in is a dark, uncaring, vile place. However, the one example of all the horrors of the adult world that stands out the most is the obscene graffiti scrawled on a wall of Phoebe’s school. Continuing the theme of wanting to protect the innocence of children, Holden feels absolutely disgusted with whoever wrote it, describing the person as “some perverty bum” (Salinger, 108). Holden’s fury with the hypothetical offender even grows to the point that he wishes to murder the man. While Holden’s intentions are noble (albeit extreme), they can also be interpreted as misguided. His assumption that a homeless man with perverted intentions broke into the school is unlikely, to say the least. In fact, it’s infinitely more likely that the graffiti was left by a rude child at Phoebe’s school who has unfortunately been exposed to the adult world Holden so despises. However, Holden is completely unable to come to this conclusion. “In his world, children are innocent and adults corrupt. While this keeps everything nice and simple in Holden's mind, it also makes it impossible for him to really understand the process of growing-up” (Shmoop Editorial Team). Holden is so desperate to keep his worldview that all children are innocent that his mind completely shuts out the possibility of children who have learned of the monstrosity of the adult world, not wanting to believe that kids have snuck past him in his role as a proverbial Catcher in the Rye. Furthermore, the appearance of the salacious vandalism occurs near the end of the novel, when Holden is on the verge of a breakdown. The precise moment in the story where

Imagine going under treatment in a mental hospital or any medical center and telling a story of when you were sixteen years old. Well in the novel, Catcher In The Rye, the protagonist Holden Caulfield tells a story of when he was sixteen years old from a mental hospital. J.D Salinger gives his outlook of the world through the main character of the book; Holden Caulfield. The book was first released to be a book for adults, but over the years has become common throughout young adults and teens. The main character and narrator is Holden Caulfield. Holden is a sixteen year old who is expelled from his four schools, due to failure in each of his classes. He frequently refers to people he does not like as phonies. Although Holden Caulfield is very negative throughout the book, he is also very hypocritical towards many things. Holden is very hypocritical towards many things because he calls almost everyone in the book a phony, and he whines and complains about people and their flaws. Even though he tries to hide the fact that he can also be a phony or any other person that he complains about.

In the controversial novel, The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield, the main protagonist, exhibits behavioral tendencies which are not common for most teenagers in his age. The author tries to present a mind of an emotionally damaged teenager who displays an extremely cynical and depressive personality. He finds everything and everybody to be phony or deceiving. “One of the biggest reasons [He] left Elkton hills was because [He] was surrounded by phonies” (Salinger 13). As can be seen from the quote, he is quite exaggerative.

So far while reading the novel I have met the main character Holden Caulfield who narrates this whole story. Holden is very interesting being only 16 and already be kicked out of schools, he claims that he is out of shape because of smoking. You would think that going to a prep school he would be participating in sports teams. The way that Holden views everything and everyone as "phony" makes you wonder what happened in his past to give him this idea about everyone. Another character that we have met is Holden’s older brother D. B. Caulfield. D. B. wrote a volume of short stories that Holden admires very much, and is writing for Hollywood movies. I am intrigued

What we discover are Holden’s tumultuous desires to throw himself into adulthood, and his equally unstable reactions to his subsequent denial of entry. Coupled with, his obvious obsession with the innocence of childhood, the severity of his internal conflict becomes increasingly more clear. “The most glaring indicator of Holden’s current transition is his acting against emotion. It is very clear that Holden is lonely. Yet every time he reaches out for companionship he quickly switches to using rude and self-destructive behavior to isolate himself again.”

     Throughout “The Catcher in the Rye”, Holden Caufield longs for intimacy with other human beings. One of Holden’s main problems is that he sees childhood as the ideal state of being. He thinks that all adults are phonies.

Holden Caulfield, from Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, is deceiving himself because he is seeking truth and individuality, while trying to protect his own innocence and purity. When Holden wants to know “where [the ducks] go, when [the lake] gets all frozen over” (p.60), it shows his yearning for a deeper understanding of life, as well as his inability to accept situations and people as they are. Consequently, he makes quick judgments to protect himself from the fact that not everything makes sense. One of Holden’s significant judgments is his belief that he is “surrounded by phonies” (p. 41). Ironically, the judgments he makes are all phony, because he cannot bear the reality that things are more complex, and subsequently that everything