Is Holden a Byronic Hero?

“Holden’s world provides no one he can truly emulate.” (Bryan, 33) .m in this novel JD Stanley narrates the secondary characters as personifications as either the exact opposite rejecting Holden wants to be. His fears are portrayed in ackley, stradlater and mr. Spencer. Ackley is described to be what every teenage boy doesn't want to be, ugly and disgusting. stradlater is described as one of the largest Playboy's in pencey prep. Holden describes them both as Big phonies, along with everyone else at pencey. Holden’s fears of death and sickness is shown in mr. Spencer’s sick room. he wants to be wise likes mr. Spencer but he doesn't want the illness and old age. “ Holden is a wonderful creation. So he throws himself around as if he disparages the human race, he does not have the misanthropy that you associate with that kind of disparagement. He has a real feeling for people, that's the richness of his character...” (Moss; Devices, 31) Holden isn't just cynical he sees the world for what it really is he sees boys soccer past the stereotypes right through to the reality and thickness of a person Holden's character is what people in the real world parentheses outside of just not want to see hate the most because these are the types of people that don't lie about who or what they are. Hold him. Want to be something that are played out in the

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,

Holden has all of these traits. In the novel, nearly every time Holden gets depressed, he turns to alcohol. At Ernie’s night club he got served alcohol even though he was a minor. He even got drunk at the Wicker Bar. He used alcohol to escape the sadness in his life, which many killers were known to do as well. Holden also grew up lonely. He lost motivation to do well in school, which got him kicked out of Quincy High, losing his friends. His brother is also dead which may contribute to his feeling of loneliness. Holden always fantasizes about saving all the children from growing up, being their ‘Catcher in the Rye’. If somebody were to get in the way of his fantasy, he might have killed them. Holden is also socially awkward, loving children but hating adults, calling them ‘phonies’. He only has a few friends throughout the novel. He gets very angry with his friends, like when Stradlater goes out with Holden’s ex-girlfriend, Jane, whom he still has feelings for. This made him leave Quincy three days early while he travelled to Manhattan. “I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by.” said Holden (Page 4). Finally, Holden has some sexually stressful moments in the novel, like when he hired a hooker to come upstairs into his room. He wanted to do it, but when she got into the room, he

He may still be a young boy but he is very independent and basically lives on his own for the entirety of the book, but his negative outlook transforms independence into isolation. He is incredibly lonely but also pushes people away when he has a chance to get close to them. Such as his date with Sally Hayes which was going very well until he pushed her away with his harsh words, “You give me a royal pain in the ass, if you want to know the truth” (Ch. 17 pg. 173). Just because Sally wouldn’t run away with him and be independent with him he pushed her away. Holden may think he wants to be free and independent but his negative outlook just feeds his loneliness and

This shows just how shallow Holden can be. Moreover, on pages 168- 171, Holden refers to Sally as being “goddam stupid” and a “phony” because she physically/mentally was absurd and didn’t agree with Holden when he suggested they leave to go somewhere far away. This shows that if you didn’t agree with Holden or match his standards, you would be seen as lesser of a person in his eyes. By using repetition of the words “phony”, “goddamn”, and “moron” the meaning of the word is lost. He refers to almost everyone including teachers, parents, friends, and siblings (except Allie) as a “phony” or “moron”.

In the novel Catcher in the Rye, by J.D Salinger, the main character Holden Caulfield is a sixteen year old boy who defies society and pushes himself away from society. While he pushes himself away, he starts getting the title of an antihero. The qualities of an anti hero that Holden possesses include the of lack heroic traits, defies conventional codes of behavior and is not a villain. Holden, possesses all 3 of the main qualities to be classified as an antihero.

A concept Holden had observed from the start of the novel was the materialism and egotism of people around him. There are numerous situations where this is displayed and he detests these ideas. For instance, Holden exclaims that almost everyone he encounters

He hides under a visage of a cool ‘bad boy’ trope, seeing the world through a heavy filter- to him, anyone who's anyone is a phony, a liar, or just plain bad, despite him judging many things he later goes on to do himself. Over the course of the book we come to see Holden has built an opinion of the world that shields him from the pains and complexities of life. The author displays Holden’s traits quite prominently, especially through his use of language; he writes as Holden speaks- vulgar, rambling, and easily derailed, jumping from idea to idea infinitely

            Holden is quite skilled at citing exactly what is wrong with other people.  However he never acknowledges his own faults.  He was sure the entire world was out of step with him.  As Alan Stewart explains, ?Holden seemed to divide the world into two groups.  He was in one group, along with a few other people such as his little sister, Phoebe, and

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

     Although Holden is extremely cynical and struggles with relationships, he is not all bad. Inside he is moral and generous. He was very charitable when he gave a considerable donation of twenty dollars to the nuns. Holden has a strange way of loving people.

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

Everyone knows not to judge a book by its cover.Same goes with people, your not supposed to judge a person because of what they look like.The issue with Holden is that he does the very thing that everyone tells you not to do. A similar issue occurs with the speaker of the poem when he thinks someone else is the problem. The speaker in Taylor Mali’s poem The Problem and the character Holden from JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye are both examples of people who think that others are the problem, but the speaker eventually turns the lens on himself while Holden doesn’t. In the poem, the speaker starts pinpointing who the problem is but later wonders if he is the problem. While Holden criticizes all of his friends at Pencey but never criticizes

Throughout the novel, Holden holds an extreme hatred for those he considers act in a way inaccurate to their true personality, in other words, phonies. For example, when recalling a double date with his handsome yet messy roommate Stradlater, Holden Laments “He’d start snowing his date in this very quiet, sincere voice-like he wasn’t only a handsome guy but a nice, sincere guy too. I damn near puked”(Pg. 49).As every child matures into adulthood, they learn the age old skill in flirtation, in other words, portraying themselves to in the best possible light to their date, however, Holden vies this natural process as something grotesque and phony. Later in the novel, Holden visits a telephone booth and, while initially being reluctant to call somebody, he ends up attempting to organize a date with a woman by the name of faith, disguising his voice and pretending to be an acquaintance of one of her friends.