Catcher In The Rye: Out For Cigarettes

Holden thinks children are authentic and in order to stay authentic in a world full of phonies he seeks to preserve his childlike nature. In chapter 13, Holden talks about the concept of his virginity, he says “If you want to know the truth, I’m a virgin. I really am. I’ve had quite a few opportunities to lose my virginity and all, but I never got around to it yet. Something always happens.”(92). Holden admits he’s still a virgin and to many people losing your virginity is a step to adulthood. This is Holden’s way of trying to protect what little he has of his childhood to prevent himself from becoming an adult. That “something always happens”(92) is his own subconscious telling him to stop and to save this moment for someone who he really likes not a prostitute whom he bought. Holden even says earlier ,in the novel, “I don’t like the idea...I think if you don’t really like a girl, you shouldn’t horse around with her at all”(62). The author is trying to show how kids can avoid being an adult in the real world. Although he tries to protect his youth, Holden also likes to pretend his is an adult. He does things like being an avid smoker, constantly wanting to drink, and wanting to hookup with girls. Doing acts like these: ”After a while I sat down in a chair and smoked a couple of cigarettes.”(63), “‘Would any of you girls care to dance?’ I didn’t ask them crudely or anything. Very suave, in fact.”(70), “Boy, I sat at that goddamn bar

The irony of Holden detesting phoniness and adulthood is that he acts so much like an adult with his curiosity and experience with alcohol and sex that he misses his own opposition. Holden hates the responsibility, morality, and accountability of being an adult and embraces childhood. This contradicts everything that he desires and to want to take part in. This causes his own corruption and enables a failure to relate to himself.

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,

This quote highlights Holden Caulfield’s strong disagreement and contempt to adults; in Holden’s eyes, adults are phony and the only people in the book he connects with are children, Phoebe and his deceased brother, Allie. Holden is growing up and afraid of adulthood so he creates cynical armor around himself where he silently ridicules and points people out as phonies if they

Holden enjoys certain aspects of adulthood. Holden likes to smoke, drink and have sex. These are all new aspects of adulthood that many children do not face. Holden is going through a transition stage in his life where he is figuring out who he is, and what he likes as a young adult while still grasping onto safer feelings aspects of childhood. Holden smokes cigarettes when he feels lonely. On page 97, Holden says, “I’d probably go down to the can and sneak a cigarette and watch myself getting tough in the mirror.” In this quotation, Holden implies that he is by himself and feels isolated from everyone because he says he would get tough in the mirror. This is the time that Holden chooses to smoke because he feels safer and isolated from everyone else. This quotation also suggests that Holden smokes to feel older because it is something he knows adults do even though he is not sure yet how to be an

How would you know you weren 't being a phony? The trouble is, you wouldn 't." This is displayed when he is talking to Phoebe and she is talking about a boy in her class who probably likes her but she doesn 't want him to, she tells Holden that she put ink on his jacket and Holden responds to that by saying, "That isn 't nice. What are you-a child, for God 's sake?" Holden likes getting reactions from people to reassure himself of his actions. This is a parallel to what all teenagers must go through at one point in their life, the line between should I do this to please my parents, or should I do what I want to do? Holden represents every teenagers struggle for independence.

A large part of Holden’s depression stems from his hatred of the adult world that Holden believes is full of “phonies.” To Holden, phony people are not limited to purely “fake” people, but also people who act in a stereotypical way. For example, if a Catholic preached to him and asked him if he was a Catholic, they would be “phony” in his eyes, because they behaved in a way that is generally expected of them. However, this view that Holden holds is hypocritical of him, because he is constantly making generalizations and lying at impulse to almost everyone he meets just because he “feels like it” (Salinger 58). Holden cannot control his compulsive lying which shows that his control over his primal instincts is restricted which is likely a

The goal that that Holden has to try so hard to fulfil is symbolic of his need to differentiate himself from the "phonies" around him. Holden’s image of people is pretty bad because he believes no one acts how they truly feel. Growing up scares Holden because it leads to adulthood. In his eyes once he hits adulthood, it'll eventually lead into the same phoniness as the rest of the adults. His constant avoidance and dodging of people and situations causes him to become more and more distant from normal society and social stability.

After spending some time in New York, Holden decides to reach out to some of his old friends. He calls an old friend, Carl Luce and asks to meet him for dinner. While he can’t make dinner, he does agree to a drink and they arrange to meet at a popular bar in the city. Holden arrives at the bar early and begins drinking. After a moment, he begins to describe others in the bar. He describes the singers and people sitting near him in a negative tone, criticizing them and their behavior. He says “The bartender was a louse, too. He was a big snob” (157). Although Holden doesn’t know him personally at all, he immediately forms a negative opinion of him. This feeling of resentfulness towards others is likely due to the critical way he thinks about himself and his constant feeling of being an outsider. As the story progresses, Holden takes a trip to visit his little sister Phoebe. He sneaks into his parents’ home and finds her sleeping. He notices she has a nice skirt and jacket set laid on the chair and explains how his mother has impeccable taste. He also notes most kids dress terribly and says, “You take most little kids, even if their parents are wealthy and all, they usually have some terrible dress on” (166/167). Even after continuously saying how much he loves kids and how great they are, Holden still has a negative opinion about them. He consistently has a negative opinion about others,

The relationship between Holden and the "phonies" shows how Holden despise the society at first. Whenever he meets people he thinks they are "phony" he would criticize them. For instance during the intermission of the play, the conversation between Sally and George

Holden gets drunk multiple times in the book and he smokes quit a bit. Keep in mind, Holden is 16 years old and the drinking age limit is 18 back in this time. He gets away with drinking illegally. His smoking is legal, but is not a good influence on sophomores in high school. This book makes it seem like it is okay to do illegal things and to smoke. Smoking is unhealthy and no one should do it. Drinking illegally isn’t okay and could lead to bad things. This is also making it seem like it’s easy to get away with undeage drinking.

The symbolisms of cigarettes throughout the book showed the struggles and hardships that Holden encountered while travelling. The biggest internal and external problem that Holden had was smoking cigarettes. Holden smokes cigarettes when he has issues with hypocrisy, immorality, and things that he believes are “phony”. He also smokes to help his depression and loneliness issues. One of the early signs of Holden and his struggles with cigarettes in chapter six is when Holden and Stradlater are in their dorm room arguing about what Holden has written

Holden is a profoundly negative person, he is constantly judging other people, calling them ‘phonies’ and criticising them. For instance when he says “I was surrounded by phonies.” of his time at Elkton Hills. (CITR, 14) Throughout the novel, Holden repeatedly behaves immature and makes irresponsible and destructive decisions, even if he knows it is the wrong thing to

Holden handles his belief that adulthood is sardonic rather childish yet adultlike. For instance, when Holden is out with Sally he acts immature about the “phonies” around him. “At the end of the first act we went out with all the other jerks for a cigarette. What a deal that was. You never saw so many phonies in your life, everybody smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they were” (164). Holden thinks