Similarities Between Jay Gatsby And Holden Caulfield

Imagine a person constantly lying to get through the world, lying to themselves just to keep themselves in a relatively good state of mind. But they don’t always realize it. Throughout the novel Catcher in the Rye, Holden, the narrator if the story, is one of those people. Holden will often believe that what he says is honest, but as the story progresses, readers can tell that not all that he mentions is all true. In J.D.Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Holden’s lies are to protect himself and others and keep himself out the wrong because he is worried about his own survival.

Holden’s immaturity causes him many problems throughout the story. Although he is physically mature, he acts more like a child. “All of a sudden I

Holden is the biggest hater of phonies, and at the same time, he is the biggest phony in the novel. In this novel, being phony is somewhat equivalent to being an adult. Holden wants to be seen like an adult. For this reason, he smokes and drinks heavily, and goes as far as being involved with prostitution. For people like Stradlater and adults, these are rather normal from their perspective. However, for Holden, they become paradoxes, as he absolutely loathes phoniness. Nearly all aspects of society, including movies, matinees, people’s behaviors, and even simple social interactions like conversations, are criticized by Holden for being phony. For example, during his date with Sally, Sally’s conversation with a guy they met at the matinee “killed [Holden]…it was the phoniest conversation you ever heard in your life” (Salinger 127). In a hope to make Sally understand his views on phonies, Holden says, “‘Take cars,’… ‘I don’t even like old cars. I mean they don’t even interest me. I’d rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God’s sake’” (Salinger 130). Then again, Holden becomes the phoniest person shortly after. He asks Carl Luce,

The memories that have clustered in his mind were all of the sins such as, sex, money and violence. All that Holden can understand of the, World thus far are only these three things. He even says towards the end of the novel "You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write F**k you right under your nose" (204). The reason why he thinks in such a way is because he doesn't want Phoebe or even anyone who is innocent to be exposed to this type of crudeness. Salinger is actually very brilliant enough to stay away from the people he cannot trust and understand. This is very safe to

When Holden takes a cab to "Ernie's" in Greenwich Village he has a conversation with the cab driver, Horwitz. Salinger demonstrates the paranoia of the 50's by emphasizing how angry Horwitz is that Holden is asking him so many questions.

Many works of literature contain a character who intentionally deceives others. In Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, the character Jay Gatsby deceives the entire world with his riches and his extravagant house on West Egg, as well as his bootleg industries. Although it was deliberate and a little selfish, he does it all to find and woo what he believes to be his true love, Daisy Buchanan.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Gatsby is a man who can be compared to Holden Caulfield from J.D Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. Jay Gatsby and Holden Caulfield are both caught up in their unattainable dreams and first love and as a result struggle with an obsession of their past.

In The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, Holden lies a lot for many reasons. Holden will lie to anyone in order to hide his past from others and create a ‘new him’, gain pitty, and entertainment. He lies to complete strangers, friends, family members, and even the person who is closest to, his sister, Phoebe. Holden hopes to create a new version of himself when he lies. He uses lying to feel good about himself and to cover up that he is depressed and sad about his brothers death. Holden considers himself a professional lier and finds himself constantly lying.

Jay Gatsby, otherwise known as James Gatz is a prime example of illusion that is seen as reality. Jay tells Nick that he is from the Midwest and he comes from a wealthy family, but they are all dead now and he came into an enormous amount of money. “I’ll tell you God’s truth. I am the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West.” (Fitzgerald 65) He says he lived as a young rajah and traveled the world doing many different adventurous things that you would be able to do if you had as much money as he did. We soon find out that this is all a lie and Jay Gatsby is actually James Gatz from an awfully poor family in North Dakota. He made his money by bootlegging after Dan Cody’s mistress made sure he didn’t get the 25,000 he was supposed to. The truth of his family background and how he made his money shows the false reality that

Gatsby fails to earn respect from wealthy socialites of the East Eggers because he disguises his true identity, which hinders him from achieving his dream. As a young child, Gatsby was not familiar with wealth since his parents were poor and unsuccessful farmers. Gatsby achieves success because he goes from having nothing to owning a huge mansion but he isn’t accepted by the high class society. Gatsby tries to trick others about his social status with lies of his own “I was brought up in America, but educated at Oxford because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years” (Fitzgerald 65). Gatsby’s tries to hide his background by saying he was “brought up in America” this implies that he wants others to think of him as socialite because he studied at Oxford, a prestigious college. Gatsby thinks that lying about his education at “Oxford” will increase his chances of being accepted into the society of “Old Money”. For instance, Gatsby lies about his education and birthplace to deceive people into thinking that Gatsby has always been a part of the “Old Money”. Gatsby’s own account of his prominent past

To begin with, was the encounter with Maurice and Sunny. On his return to the hotel from Ernie's, Holden met Maurice, the elevator operator. He asked Holden if he was, "Innarested in a little tail t'night?" (Salinger 152). Holden had been

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.

Throughout the story, Jay Gatsby avoids telling the truth of his hard, ordinary childhood. He does this to keep his image and to save himself from the embarrassment of being in a state of poverty during his youth. His parents were

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.

Jay Gatsby is a rich man of the early twenties, and Holden Caulfield is a young man whose brother, Allie, had died of leukemia. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Holden Caulfield is phonier than Jay Gatsby because Holden isn’t living a lie that he told himself and to other people, he has also lied about his age for many reasons.