Holden Caulfield Phony

In the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger we see life through the 16-year-old teenage boy Holden Caulfield’s eyes and we learn about what he wants to pursue in life as well as what troubles have made him the way he is. Holden Caulfield views his surroundings with negativity and contempt with the purpose to avoid the corruption of adulthood. He is stuck between the bridge of childhood and adulthood and he fears the responsibility he must take to fully cross the bridge. Holden isolates himself from all adults and places himself in a separate crowd, one that will avoid corruption and will save the innocence of the young. Holden believes all adults possess traits of that of a "phony” and when he encounters people they strike him as

"phony," a word he constantly uses to describe or compare anything hypocritical, shallow, superficial, inauthentic, or otherwise fake. However throughout the novel Holden himself shows traits that he so much despites, making him a hypocrite and a “phony”.
At the beginning of the story we can observe how Holden acts in an ironic way buy doing what he hates the most.

Holden decides to visit his history teacher, old Mr.Spencer where he has quite an unpleasant experience. Mr. Spencer brings up an old blanket quite often he is very proud of that item and thinks he obtained it for a good price, Holden finds this action very annoying in addition Mr.Spencer calls Holden “boy” very often and it bothers Holden and at one point he feels that Mr.Spencer speaks to him in a condescending tone. The irony behind this is that Holden replicates the scenario himself, he bought a red hunting hat which gives him a thrill to talk about it and how he got it for a good price. Holden attends Pencey and there he has a “friend”named Ackley who Holden calls “kid” in the same manner old Mr.Spencer called him “boy” which is hypocritical. Holden is blind of his actions and continues to ignore the fact he must grow up and

mature.
Holden is not very fond about adults and one thing this is due to is adults shave a lying nature which makes them “phoneys”. During chapter 8, Caulfield takes the train headed back home where he will find a place to stay at while his parents “cool off” since he waas expelled and during this period of time he makes two mistakes, one is he hides the truth from his parents and he lies to a woman he meets on the ride. The woman was the mother of a boy he knew at Pencey, Holden strongly disliked him but told the mom he was the best and gave her multiple lies about how “good” her son was. The second mistake making him a hypocrite is the fact he tried to hide the fact he was expelled instead of coming straight and clean yo his parents. Once again Holden acts in a childlike way demonstrating his mind is not clear and he does not know how to act thus he himself acts like a “phoney”.
When Jane is first brought up it is evident Holden has deep feelings for her but he never acts upon what he feels and always pushes those feelings aside and tries to replace them with something else or null them out.

Two examples of this would be him trying to spend time with Sally since he is not mature enough or too afraid to contact Jane. He has an emotional hole that only Jane can fill up, but he tries to cover it with Sally. Another example would be when he’s at the hotel and gives a girl a call who he could have the possible chance of sexual intercourse as well as he buys the hooker in the hotel. Holden hates how people act fake towards each other or how they use each other but he does this to Sally without the need

to.
It is evident that Holden fears being an adult for the traits they possess but he has some of the ones he most despises. He fails to acknowledge this because he lives in fear of growing up and making that final transition from acting like a child to being an adult. Thus it is very ironic for him to be scared of being an adult when he already acts like the type he does not like.