Is Holden Caulfield Reliable

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Holden is a compulsive liar. There's no denying it because it is a constant theme in the story “Catcher in The Rye” . However an argument that can be made is “Is Holden a Reliable or Unreliable Narrator? “. Holden can be a reliable narrator even though he is compulsive liar. This is so because he still tells us the truth, even though he lies too many characters throughout the story. Holden can also be an unreliable narrator.You can say that pretty much all first person narrators will be a little bias usually in their own favor. Holden is a reliable narrator because he tells the reader that he lied every time he lies throughout the novel. "Oh, how lovely! Perhaps you know my son, then, Ernest Morrow? He goes to Pencey." "Yes, I do. He's …show more content…

An example of this shows up after his fight with Stradlater. “I'd only been in about two fights in my life, and I lost both of them. I'm not too tough. I'm a pacifist, if you want to know the truth.”(Salinger 25) This can prove Holden to be an unreliable narrator because he obviously recently was in a fight and a “pacifist” would not initiate a fight as he did. Therefore he lied about being a pacifist which shows his bias opinion on himself being a pacifist even though he really is not. Another prime example from the text is when he arrives at the hotel he will be staying at “I didn't know then that the goddam hotel was full of perverts and morons. Screwballs all over the place. They gave me this very crumby room, with nothing to look out of the window at except the other side of the hotel. I didn't care much. I was too depressed to care whether I had a good view or not. The bellboy that showed me to the room was this very old guy around sixty-five. He was even more depressing than the room was. He was one of those bald guys that comb all their hair over from the side to cover up the baldness. I'd rather be bald than do that.” (Salinger 33). This could also prove Holden to be an unreliable narrator because he believes that everyone in the hotel is a pervert and a moron, but he is the one who flunked

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