Holden's Flaws In The Great Gatsby

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The main character in The Catcher in The Rye, Holden Caulfield, has multiple flaws that make him a bigger phony than Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby. Holden lies constantly in the novel, he is a hypocrite, he lies about his age and identity, and he lies about having certain feelings for people. Gatsby, still a phony, does not exceed Holden’s phoniness. Gatsby has a type of reasoning for why he does what he does. Love is in the picture when Gatsby makes decisions. Holden on the other hand does everything by the fact he is depressed over his brother’s death.
The character, Holden Caulfield, one of his biggest flaws that make him a phony is hypocritism. He tends to be able to point out everyone’s flaws except his own. He is extremely lousy …show more content…

“Now he’s in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s the movies. Don’t even mention them to me.” (pg. 2). He has no room to criticize on how people make their money. Holden spends his days just mooching off of the people around him for money. He collects money from his grandmother every so often “ I have this grandmother that’s quite lavish with her dough. She doesn’t have all her marbles any more-she’s old as hell- and she keeps sending me money for my birthday about four times a year.”(pg. 52). Then even later in the novel, he borrows money off of his ten year old sister Phoebe. He uses this money to purchase alcohol, hotel rooms, and prostitutes; which are all unnecessary purchases for Holden. Throughout the entire novel, Holden talks about almost everyone being a phony of sorts. Holden is the phoniest of them all and he doesn’t even know it. Holden judges his neighbor, Robert …show more content…

He goes on and on about having certain feeling for people, but in reality he can’t stand them at all. “Then, just to show you how crazy I am, when we were coming out of this big clinch, I told her I loved her and all. It was a lie, of course...We both hated each other’s guts by that time.”(pg. 125-126). He continued on with Sally Haze about how they should just run away together. This whole time knowing that he can’t stand her. He has so much time on his hands that he wastes by doing things he ends up hating in the end. Holden is very indecisive throughout the story. He mentions phoning or going to see Jane Gallagher multiple times in the story, but he never does. “She was a funny girl, old Jane. I wouldn't exactly describe her as strictly beautiful. She knocked me out, though.” (pg. 77). By the way he speaks about Jane, it’s a surprise she wasn’t the first person he tried to

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