Holden Caulfield Phony

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Catcher In The Rye Essay Through out the novel Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield is seen interacting with many different characters in different situations. These situations range from leaving his school, Pencey Prep; meeting a classmate’s mother on a train to New York; talking to women from Seattle in a club; encountering a ‘phoney’ pianist in a club; and much more. The way Holden responds to these people and interacts with these people is humorous at times. He may not like some because they are considered ‘phonies’, and others he can really connect to. Here are some characters that serve as great examples. The connection that Holden has with his younger brother, Allie, is very distinct. One reason may be that before …show more content…

Although we never meet Jane in the book, we hear quite a lot about her. We know that Stradlater, Holden’s former roommate at Pencey, went on a date with Jane and possibly assaulted her. Holden became very upset by this and got into a fist fight with Stradlater. Holden also remembers all of these small details about her, such as the way she keeps her kings in the back when she plays checkers. While in New York, he comments on how he always wants to call her, but he never does. At one point, Holden has a flashback to when they were in Maine together over the summer and her step father came out asking for cigarettes. “...Anyway, old Jane wouldn’t answer him when he asked if he knew there were any cigarettes… Then all of a sudden, this tear plopped down on the checkerboard… I don’t know why. but it bothered the hell out of me…” (Salinger, 88). This shows how much Holden cares for Jane and that he wants to protect …show more content…

When he first sees the three women in Seattle, he invites them over for a drink. When they laughed at him, Holden called them morons. He also was nice to them but he did it because “[The blonde] was one of the best dancers I ever danced with.” (Salinger, 79) and bought their drinks. He still called them “grools” and other rude names, and believed that they were phoney when the blonde girl talks about seeing movie stars. When Holden said that Gary Cooper in the hotel before they met, she said that she saw a glimpse of the said movie star, confirming that she was lying and therefore being a phoney. When Holden sees Ernie the pianist, he remarks on how he’s playing piano incorrectly and being a phoney. “...[Ernie] had a big damn mirror in front of the piano, with this big spotlight on him, so everybody could watch his face while he played. You couldn’t even see his fingers while he played--just his big old face…” (Salinger, 94). Holden continued to explain his verdict of Ernie being a phoney, because he acted like he was the best at piano and seemed to play just for attention rather than his love for

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