Holden Caulfield Honesty

Holden has opinions about everything and everyone he encounters; it can be said that his opinions distort his retelling of past events. He states his opinion on Ernest Morrow, “Her son was doubtless the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey…”(Salinger 61). This opinion may distort the lies he tells Ernest's mom when he retells what happened on the train ride. If Holden dislikes someone he talks negatively about them. Holden is very cynical and pessimistic. Everyone he encounters has a defect of some kind, everyone is a “phony” “I was surrounded by jerks.”(95). His opinions may only be opinions and not truth making him unreliable.

“The Catcher in the Rye” is about a sixteen year old teenager talking about the story of his mental break down. It is really impressive because J.D. Salinger’s writing style is very direct as if Holden is talking exclusively to me and telling me about his struggles between childhood and adulthood. “The Catcher in the Rye” illustrates Holden’s hope to protect childhood innocence from adult phoniness.

During the novel Holden lies to cover up his real feelings or as an excuse to not tell the truth. In Chapter 3 Holden says, “I’m the most terrific liar…” he continues by saying how frequently he lies to get himself out of trouble (Salinger, 2010:17). After Holden is expelled he decides to leave Pency and life it up for three days in New York because he cannot stay longer. Holden cannot go home sooner because he’s not feel like telling the truth to his parents (Salinger, 2010: 54). Holden choses to do the wrong thing because it is easier than to stay at Pency till Wednesday or to face his parents. Holden is contradictory he says, “I’m quite illiterate but I read a lot.” (Salinger, 2010:19). One cannot be illiterate if you read a lot. Holden is even more contradictory when he speaks of Allie in heaven but admitted that he is an atheist (Salinger, 2010:107). It is clear that Holden’s words and actions are contradictory when he says that the movies are phony but attends the movies a few times during the three days (Salinger, 2010:30).Holden’s character is riddled with dishonesty, wrong choices, and contradictions and true to an

Being a liar is one form of deceiving the world of what you truly are, and this is one thing that Holden Caulfield isn't even shy about doing, nor admitting to. He uses lies to deceives his true intentions from those around him, this is shown while leaving

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Throughout time it has been discussed that Holden is a somewhat tragic character due to the fact that he himself shows many signs of being a so called phony, but he does not see it inside himself and goes on to judge and dislike other people for being the way they are. Holden is constantly making up excuses for himself as to why when he is a certain way it does not make him a hypocrite or a phony. He also referred to himself as dumb constantly and is always doing awful in school, yet while reading the book it becomes pretty obvious that he is not dumb because he uses such interaction language There has been a wide debate on the matter that is, did Salinger wrote Holden to be purposely hypocritical to himself or if Salinger himself is a hypocritical human who truly had these clouded outlooks on life and was not able to see past his own flaws . That alone makes Holden such an interesting character to discuss, is he written to be some very layered character that can be dissected 100 different ways because he was written with the intent to be that way? Or was he written to be this rebellious teenage boy who goes on this journey and his personality and inner workings are just a product of salinger himself.

    J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye is the chronicle of a young man's metamorphosis from immaturity to unsure manhood. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, is a sixteen-year old boy who leaves the prep school he has been expelled from to escape the frightening reality of dealing with his parents. However, during his visit to New York City he is faced with the harsh reality that he cannot continue to hold onto his childhood. Holden is an extremely complex character and it is only by examining each layer of him that the reader is able to understand his painful metamorphosis.

Holden is deathly afraid of conforming, growing up, and having to assimilate into the phony adult world. As a result he comes off as hypocritical as he is the most prominent phony in the novel. He constantly lies, refuses to connect with others and overlooks his own pain, letting it deeply impact his life. Holden is a compulsive liar; he does not have one honest conversation with anyone except his sister and Jane for the duration of the novel. When he is on the train with Mrs. Morrow, for instance, he claims his name is Rudolf Schmidt and preaches about what an amazing guy her son is, even though he is “the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey, in the whole crumby history of the school.” (61) This shows that Holden falls victim to the same social conventions as everyone else. He says exactly what Mrs. Morrow wants to hear, despite the fact that he

Holden gives detail to things that don’t have much meaning, “A careful look at the first scene in the novel provides clues for interpretation, by no means crucial in themselves, but illustrative of a pattern of scene construction and suggestive imagery that does yield meaning,”(James Bryan). Holden is very existential and does what he wants even while telling the story, he jumps from place to place, and contradicts himself, and can even be called a hypocrite at times. Holden’s way of storytelling involves bringing things up, and giving examples of his life to connect to the part he is at in his

Holden met up with Spencer, his history teacher to say goodbye to. Holden was desiring the ability to leave since he was very uncomfortable since Spencer was old, and he had tricked him into the reason he was coming. Holden opened the gate to leave because “[he] had to go right to the gym,” (19) even though there was nothing at then gym he to see or get. Holden found an escape as he did with Mrs. Morrow by finding an excuse for why he has to do a certain task. When Sunny, a prostitute that Holden would have to pay for later cam into his room, Holden felt “more depressed than sexy” (107).

His lying can bring happiness to others but when it gets out of hand, he cannot stop and regrets every word of it. While he is speaking with Mrs. Morrow, she asks why he is out of school so early when break starts on wednesday. Holden does not want Mrs. Morrow to know what happened because he does not want her to be disappointed in him. He comes off too her as a great kid who respects her son and got hit with a snowball, another lie, and saying he flunked out of school and got in a fight would ruin her liking to him. He does not want to disappoint her because he wants to sleep with her and is afraid that will ruin it, it's because she is a motherly figure.

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