Holden Caulfield

His former principal Haas’s differential treatment of people’s parents is phony (17), and at the same time Mr. Spencer’s use of the word “grand” (12) is phony. It is a bit confusing. To sum up the possible meanings, a phony can have any of the following traits: insincerity, maturity, conceitedness, poshness, dishonesty, and masquerading. It is interesting that many of these meanings apply to Holden himself. For example, Holden likes to masquerade and lie. When Holden talks to the mother of a Pencey classmate he hates, Ernest Morrow, Holden claims to be named Rudolf Schmidt, and proceeds to have a lot of fun lying extensively about how great of a guy Ernest is. He admits about his lying, “Once I get started, I can go on for hours if I feel like it. No kidding. Hours” (61-65). Earlier in the story, he claimed to be “The most terrific liar you ever saw in your life” (19). Holden is a compulsive liar, a very “phony” behavior. This is one of the most obvious hypocrisies in Holden’s

Holden defines phony as hypocrites, condescending people, liars, and conceited people. He left Elkton Hills because he didn’t like being surrounded by a bunch of phonies. Holden mentions Mr. Haas, the headmaster at Elkton Hills, as “the phonies bastard I ever met in my life,” (Salinger 13). Holden explained that Mr. Haas would go around shaking parents hands on Sundays, but when he sees a very strange person, he would shake their hands and leave to talk to other people. Holden calls Mr. Haas phony because he judges people on how they look. Although he calls others a phony, Holden’s a phony himself because he lies about himself and others. If Holden doesn’t like phonies, then he doesn’t accept himself. He wants to change, so he has to lie in order to not tell the

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,

In the novel, The Catcher In The Rye, by J. D. Salinger, phonies play a grand role as one of the major themes of the novel. Webster's Dictionary defines a phony as, "a person who is not what he pretends to be." There are many examples of phonies in the novel, such as Sally Hayes, Stradlater, and even Holden Caulfield. Holden appears to be the biggest phonie of them all. Holden Caulfield is by far the king of all the phonies mentioned in the novel, The Catcher In The Rye, for he lies, is a hypocrite, and adjust his outside image.

“The Catcher in the Rye”, a novel by J.D. Salinger, follows the narrated story of Holden Caulfield, a 16-year-old boy, as he is kicked out of prep-school and thrust into the harsh (albeit “phonier”) reality of adult life. The story begins with Holden, having recently been expelled, discussing the terms, cause, and inevitable effects of his expulsion with an elderly friend. After arriving back at his dormitory, Holden decides that he is unhappy not only with his friends Ackley and Stradlater, but with all of Pencey (his prep school) itself and promptly leaves for New York. After facing conflicting feelings of speaking of his current situation with any of his friends (especially Jane Gallagher, with whom he previously shared an intimate relationship),

Holden at the beginning of the book attends a wealthy all boys’ school. Every part of the school to him is phony; the school is flooding with 2 faced wealthy bastards. He so badly wants for everyone to be genuine, I personally think that is the reason he rebels so much from authority and responsivities. “Grand that’s a word I really hate. It’s a phony.” (pg. 9) Nothing no one, just a word, a word gives him the wrong vide and it automatically becomes phony. The Webster definition of phony is “Not genuine.” Holden uses the word phony due to his lack of genuinely that he has received from people. He is looking for something genuine. He wants people to understand the importance of being genuine for once. This could be a major factor of him wanting to be the Catcher in the rye. He wants to change the trend; he wants the fakeness of society to understand the importance of being genuine

In the book, Holden describes many people as phony, whether they are his friends or random people he meets. Holden spends so much energy and time searching for phoniness in others, he never observes his own phoniness. His lies are pointless and cruel and he admits that he is a compulsive liar. One example is while he is on the train to New York, he plays a mean and unnecessary trick on Mrs. Morrow; " May I ask your name dear? "Rudolf Schmidt," I told her. I didn't feel like giving her my whole life history. Rudolf Schmidt was the name of the janitor of our

Salinger describes Holden as someone who tries to find his place in society. With the foot on the threshold of adulthood, we see Holden struggling to relinquish his connection to the innocence of childhood. He mainly feels all the adults are phony and finds children, like his sister Phoebe, innocent. That is why Phoebe is one of the only people Holden can connect with and he has a dual nature. As a young boy growing up, he tries to make connections with people, but he cannot, mainly because his standards are too high.

Jerome David Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, describes Holden Caulfield’s journey to understand the complexities of growing up and his purpose. In the beginning, he is in a mental hospital somewhere near Los Angeles and is writing about this “madman stuff” to a psychoanalyst. Holden flunked out of Pencey Prep and leaves his dormitory to go on a journey around New York to find his way through post-war New York society. At the same time, he is suffering from depression and is on the verge of mental collapse. Eventually, he breaks down, thus the mental hospital. In Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s mental breakdown results from his self-imposed isolation, his environment, and his inundating grief over Allie’s death.

The irony behind all of these instances when Holden calls others phony is that Holden has many cases building up himself. He lies constantly, and he even says, “I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw” (19). In one circumstance, Holden encounters a woman on the bus who happens to be the mother of a boy from Pencey, and he tells Mrs. Morrow one lie after another. He creates a fake name for himself, and begins “shooting the old crap

The character of Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in The Rye, is one of the most studied and theorized protagonists in literature to this day. He leaves critics mystified and speculating on the depths of the personality and the reasoning behind his actions. The story takes place in New York City following Holden’s explosion from a string of prestigious preparatory schools. Three days of meandering around the city gives the reader insight to his history and to the question of why, perhaps, he is less than mentally sound. The better answer to that question is found in the research of the man who created Holden and his world, J.D. Salinger.

In John Green’s Looking for Alaska and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonists, Miles and Holden, are both students at boarding schools during different time periods. Miles Halter (Pudge) is a new student at Culver Creek Preparatory School and came from a public school where he didn’t have any friends. Holden Caulfield attended a boarding school called Pencey Prep, until he got expelled. Both protagonists change a lot during the duration of the novel.

“The catcher in the Rye” by J.D Salinger is a novel narrated by a young teenage boy named Holden Caufield. Holden insinuates that the location he is writing takes place in a mental institute where he is undergoing treatment for his breakdowns. The story begins as a series of occurrences a few days after he gets the axe and is asked to leave the school he is currently attending.

Holden’s physical appearance of, “six foot two and a half and [having] gray hair” (Salinger pg.11), accurately represents the inevitable physical change that all people go through, and the change that Holden is trying to avoid. Although he looks like an adult, throughout the novel we see that, many time, he, “...acts younger than [his] age” (11). This motif of maturity also extends to Holden’s perceptions and experiences with other characters. Holden sees the good in the younger people that he knows and meets throughout the novel, such as Phoebe, Sunny, Allie, and the child he sees singing about the catcher in the rye. He wants those kids to keep their innocence and happiness about the world, meaning that he doesn’t want them to grow up at all. Holden’s view on adulthood a, plain and simple, is that all adults he meets are what he’s call “phonies”. Throughout the story he seems to disagree, have a problem with, or critique every adult or older person that he is around, whether it be old Spencer, Maurice, Earnest Morrow’s mother, or even his parents. Yet ,many times he finds himself resenting those critiques or regretting things that he said to people, like when he unexpectedly leaves Mr.Antolini’s house because he was patting Holden’s head. Holden laments afterwards that, “...it was wrong about thinking he was making a flitty pass at

Holden uses the word phony various times during this novel and he is describing people as this because of their actions and how