Universal themes of alienation, phoniness and love can be found throughout the novel, which expresses the concerns of the lost generation and questions our society.
First of all, alienation is a crisis of the relationship between people after the Great war. Throughout the novel, the hero Holden seems to have been excluded and deceived from the world around him. As he said to his history teacher, Mr. Spencer, he feels that he is stuck in the life of another pole. He constantly tried to find the way out in the world that he does not belong to. He is desperate to get in touch with people, but he can neither properly express his feelings of this need to interact with others, nor has the ability to let others understand his feelings. Thus, he is
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From his perspective, adults are liars without exception, and even worse that they can't see their hypocrisy. In order to fight against the phony, Holden tries his best to find the truth. But the path of pursuing truth is full of disappointment and disillusionment. At the beginning, Holden tries to fight against phony by originality and spontaneity. This is remarkable from Holden criticizing the pianist Ernie: “He’s so good he’s almost corny”(Salinger, 44). He destroys the originality and spontaneity of the music: “Whatever it was, he was really stinking it up. He was putting all these dumb, show-offy ripples in the high notes, and a lot of other very tricky stuff that gives me a pain in the ass”(Salinger, 46). In Holden's opinion, he is not to playing the piano, but pleasing those idiots and fools. His understanding of music has become vulgar. Thus, he has lost the pure beauty and the inspiration of music. Holden’s pursuit of truth is the freezing time. He likes the Museum of natural history because it is a frozen, silent and never changing world. It represents Holden’s ideal world, the world of to be the catcher in the rye. In this world, things never change, everything is very simple can be understood and is
J.D Salinger gives his personal vision of the world successfully through his persona Holden Caulfield in the ‘Catcher in the Rye’. Caulfield struggles with the background of New York to portray Salinger’s theme – you must live the world as it is, not as you would like it to be. There by exposing Salinger’s vision on the world.
Since Holden was isolated from his family, in order to not get hurt again he tries to find hypocrisy in people to stop himself from trusting others. Holden feels isolated after being sent to a boarding school that “was full of phonies” by his parents (Salinger 90). Salinger’s message to the audience with this quote is that when
The way that Salinger writes gives the audience a very personal and insightful look into what Holden is feeling. It’s told in the first person, in a confessional style, and utilises digression. This creates a sense of closeness with the protagonist. It’s like Holden is talking directly to the reader.
Published in 1951, J. D. Salinger's debut novel, The Catcher in the Rye, was one of the most controversial novels of its time. The book received many criticisms, good and bad. While Smith felt the book should be "read more than once" (13), Goodman said the "book is disappointing" (21). All eight of the critics had both good and bad impressions of the work. Overall, the book did not reflect Salinger's ability due to the excessive vulgarity used and the monotony that Holden imposed upon the reader.
Holden often talked about how phony people in his life were, however, he was also a phony, which made him a hypocrite. Holden would often mention things he hated that someone did, but sooner or later Holden was guilty of doing the exact same thing. In chapter one Holden is hypocritical towards his older brother, D.B. He says “Now he’s out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute.”(Salinger
Holden criticizes phonies although he engages in phony conversations and uses 'phony' words. Before he leaves Pencey Prep, in his visit with Mr. Spencer, Holden partakes in an obviously phony conversation. During their talk old Spencer uses the term "grand" (p7) which infuriates Holden, "Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's a phony" (p9). But he had already used the word "nice" (p1) and later uses the word "swell" (p124) both of which are 'phony.' Later, while he was on the train he struck up a phony conversation with Mrs. Morrow. In order to elicit pity from her, and misrepresent himself, he explained his reason for going home early was not that he was flunking classes (the truth) but, that he had "to have this operation" (p58). Holden deceives others by misrepresenting himself and acting phony.
It's awful’” (9). Holden is a phony but does not realize it, even though he realizes very more subtle problems with himself. He should be able to see his own duplicity. Holden is guilty of being a phony is therefore a hypocrite because he is guilty of the insult he throws around. When Holden calls someone a phony he means that person is bogus or fake. Holden is a deceiver and offers no substitute. He tends to call most people he doesn’t like phonies and just tosses the word around. J.D. Salinger wants the reader to be able to spot hypocrisy when judging other people. Holden makes like he seemingly hates everybody but at the end of the book he lets the readers know that he misses everyone. Even though Holden is a phony it’s what makes him such a deep and intriguing
J.D. Salinger shows that fear of change can stop one from moving forward. The first impactful example J.D. Salinger shows us of Holden’s fear of change is when Holden goes into any detail relating to the museum. Holden relishes in the fact that every time you go to the museum it stays the same, and even recalls that is how the museum was when he visited there as a child. When he was a child, Holden had one opinion about what he thought was the best part of the museum, “the best things, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was” (121). Holden clearly enjoyed that the museum stayed the same when he was a child and he still does now that he is older. Holden wants to hold onto these memories of when he was younger so he does not have...
While Holden is in the city he recalls that “[a]t 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 all your life” (Salinger 164). Meanwhile Holden is doing the exact same thing, he is calling other people fake for doing, proving that he is equally as flawed as everyone else. No one is immune to Holden’s view of how people should act, and how they actually do, not even his family.
Protected by a cocoon of naiveté, Holden Caulfield, the principal character in the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, therapeutically relates his lonely 24 hour stay in downtown New York city, experiencing the "phony" adult world while dealing with the death of his innocent younger brother. Through this well-developed teenage character, JD Salinger, uses simple language and dialogue to outline many of the complex underlying problems haunting adolescents. With a unique beginning and ending, and an original look at our new society, The Catcher in the Rye is understood and appreciated on multiple levels of comprehension. The book provides new insights and a fresh view of the world in which adolescents live.
In J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, the main character Holden Caufield believes that innocence is corrupted by society. He exposes his self-inflicted emotional struggles as he is reminiscing the past. For Holden, teenage adolescence is a complicated time for him, his teenage mentality in allows him to transition from the teenage era to the reality of an adult in the real world. As he is struggling to find his own meaning of life, he cares less about others and worries about how he can be a hero not only to himself but also to the innocent youth. As Holden is grasping the idea of growing up, he sets his priorities of where he belongs and how to establish it. As he talks about how ‘phony’ the outside world is, he has specific recollections that signify importance to his life and he uses these time and time again because these memories are ones that he wont ever let go of. The death of his younger brother Allie has had a major impact on him emotionally and mentally. The freedom of the ducks in Central Park symbolize his ‘get away’ from reality into his own world. His ideology of letting kids grow up and breaking the chain loose to discover for themselves portrays the carrousel and the gold ring. These are three major moments that will be explored to understand the life of Holden Caufield and his significant personal encounters as he transitions from adolescence into manhood.
This explains his obsession with innocence and childhood which are destroyed by the waves of change. He expresses this with his description of his favorite part about the museum. “The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. . . . Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you” (Salinger 121). Here Holden uses the word “you” to make it seem as if he does not change, everyone else does. Holden idealizes this stagnant scene in which everything remains constant. He enjoys this simplified view of the world because life transform into a stable concept instead of the hurricane of disaster he has witnessed with both people’s corruptness and losing his brother. His inability to change perhaps is also linked with his depression from his younger brother’s demise- the inescapable whisper that whistles through his mind. Holden views all of
From the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the youthful protagonist Holden Caufield, employs the word “phony” to describe the behavior of a number of characters including Mr. Spencer and Ossenburger, however it is not them who are“phony”, it is the young main character. First, Mr. Spencer, Holden’s ex- history teacher, is not described as phony, but according to the adolescent, his choice of words are. Secondly, according to our main character, Ossenburger is not the generous philanthropist he portrays himself to be, but rather a greedy undertaker. Lastly, the protagonist could quite possibly be the authentic phony. All in all, the main character’s use to describe many other characters in the book is with the single word phony, when in fact the word phony would be the most probable word to describe the lead character.
Some people feel all alone in this world, with no direction to follow but their empty loneliness. The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D Salinger, follows a sixteen-year-old boy, Holden Caulfield, who despises society and calls everyone a “phony.” Holden can be seen as a delinquent who smokes tobacco, drinks alcohol, and gets expelled from a prestigious boarding school. This coming-of-age book follows the themes of isolation, innocence, and corrupted maturity which is influenced from the author's life and modernism, and is shown through the setting, symbolism, and diction.
...’s habitual lying relates back to times where he is hypocritical about his environment being full of phonies. Salinger provides these small details of deceitfulness in order to further advance Holden’s character and the work as a whole.