Escape from the truth In 1950 J.D. Salenger captures one of society’s tragedies, the breakdown of a teenager, when he wrote The Catcher In The Rye. Holden Caulfield, a fickle “man” is not even a man at all. His unnecessary urge to lie to avoid confrontation defeats manhood. Holden has not matured and is unable to deal with the responsibility of living on his owe. He childishly uses a hunter’s hat to disguise him self from others. The truth of his life is sad and soon leads to his being institutionalized. He tries to escape the truth with his criticisms. Knowing he will never meet his parents’ expectations, his only true friend is his eight-year-old sister Phoebe, to whom Holden tells that he really wants to be ‘the catcher in the rye”. Holden admits his only truth and shows that Phoebe is his only friend. Another form of escape for Holden is his acting, which he uses to excuse the past. Holden has tried to lie, hide, and blame his way through life; when he finds that it is not the answer he collapses. Holden is a pathological liar. He lies, some times for no reason. Holden says his name is Rudolf Schmidt, who is acutely the janitor, to Mrs. Morrow on the train. He continues to lie throughout the conversation and avoids getting together by saying he has a tumor in his brain. This is the type of lies Holden tells. One reason for this might be that he is trying to hide his true identity. He does not want people to know who he really is or that he was kicked out of his fourth school. Holden is always using fake names and tries speaking in a tone to persuade someone to think a cretin way. He does this when he talks to women. While he is talking to the psychiatrist he explains peoples reactions to his lies like they really believe him, when it is very possible that he is a horrible liar and they are looking at him with a “what are you talking a bout?” expression. Holden often lies to the point where he is lying to him self. To Holden ever one is a “phony”, and every one has a problem that he feels he needs to exploit. While Holden is speaking to the psychiatrist, he criticizes each person as he meets them in his story.
Holden is an outlier of society, and tries to hide his own weaknesses with his angry thoughts. It is also implied that Holden is enrolled in an institution as he talks about doctor appointments towards the beginning of the book.
Holden would tell people lies just so they could not become closer to the real Holden. Holden tells lies on numerous occasions to gain. Holden pathetically tells Mrs. Morrow, "I have to have a tiny operation. it isn't very serious. " I have this tiny little tumor on my brain" (58).
Holden's idealism is first brought forth when he describes his life at Pency Prep. It is full of phonies, morons and bastards. His roommate, Stradlater, " was at least a pretty friendly guy, It was partly a phony kind of friendly..." (26) and his other roommate, Ackley is "a very nosy bastard" (33). Holden can't stand to be around either one of them for a very long time. Later, he gets into a fight with Stradlater over his date with Jane. Holden is upset because he thinks that Stradlater "gave her the time" and that he doesn't care about her; 'the reason he didn't care was because he was a goddam stupid moron. All morons hate it when you call them a moron' (44). Holden not only sees his roommates as phonies and bastards, but he also sees his headmaster at Pency Prep as a "phony slob" (3). This type of person is exactly what Holden doesn't want to be. He strives to be a mature adult; caring, compassionate, and sensitive.
In the novel Holden is what you would call an unreliable narrator. The definition of unreliable is - a person or thing that cannot be counted on or trusted. You cannot trust Holden if you know that he lies all the time. Since the reader knows that he is a habitual liar you may never know the difference from when he is telling the truth or when he is telling another one of his stories. Holden goes in and out of mental lapses throughout the novel that affected his mind and psychological state greatly.
The Catcher in the Rye The world around us can be very strange at times. From space it resembles a nice round blueberry, perfectly happy and content with itself without a care in the universe. But, if you take a closer look you will see poverty, famine, war, and peace all set atop one big huge chunk of liquid hot magma floating around, spinning endlessly in space. It could be said that the world is a very uncontrollable and unstable place.
Many of the times that Holden criticizes people, it is something he does himself. (Pg 13) “. one of the reasons I left Elkton was that I was surrounded by phonies.” Holden himself is many times what he refers to as a “phony”. He knows that he lies and pretends to like people that he would rather not be with.
Holden is biased toward certain words that he sees as phony, but he still uses words that have the same connotation. In addition, he criticizes people who are perverted, yet he holds the same sexual desires even though he has never experienced it before. Finally, Holden tells lies to boost his self esteem however, he hates it when the same type of deceit is performed by other people. Holden goes through life meeting others and setting expectations for them. Unfortunately, those adults never seem to meet his expectations. Likewise, Holden himself can never manage to live up to his own ideals either establishing a character who is never fully honest and
Holden's problems in the real world were too much for him, he had to make up things to make himself seem better than what he was.
Due to past happenings, Holden can no longer be considered mentally stable. The reader can come to this conclusion when Holden explains the events that took place in his past; he says, “…they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage” (Salinger 39). The obstacles that Holden faced in the past cause him to react differently from others and, in some cases, exaggerate more than usual when encountering particular circumstances. For example, when Holden spends the night in the home of one of his previous teachers, he is awakened by his teacher standing near him and admiring him. Holden explains, “I know more damn perverts than anybody you ever met, and they’re always being perverty when I’m around” (Salinger 192). Knowing that Holden has experienced troubles in the past that cause him to be very defensive, the reader cannot be sure whether Holden is being reasonable or over exaggerative. Because of this, Holden cannot be seen as a reliable
He describes himself as, “the most terrific liar you ever saw,” (16). He talks about how often he lies, and how he does it even in the most unnecessary situations. Heroism requires honesty, and Holden lies constantly. He has prominent traits of an anti-hero. When Holden is on his way to see Phoebe, he has to lie to the elevator boy by saying, ‘“I’m supposed to wait for them. I’m their nephew’...It’s funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want them to,” (158). He lies to practically everyone, including strangers like the elevator boy. Holden has obviously had previous experience with lying, and it comes easy to
This proves that Holden finds “phoniness” repulsive and that it sickens him. Even though Holden has no tolerance for “phoniness”, he often shows it himself. Holden says he “shoots the bull” quite often. Furthermore, he rarely tells people what he really thinks when they ask him about something. Lying comes naturally to Holden, and he enjoys it as shown when he is talking to the woman on the bus and says, “Then I really started chucking the old crap around. ‘Did he tell you about the elections?’ I asked her. ‘The class elections?’ She shook her head. I had her in a trance, like. I really did.” (Salinger, 56). Later on, Holden states that he could lie for hours if he felt like it. Those who lie often, easily and enjoy it cannot be honest people. Therefore, even people who dislike being two-faced and being “phony” can easily show it themselves. This is most apparent in peoples personalities at home with their family, compared to how they act with different groups of friends at school. Since moving last year, I have realized this myself while meeting new people at school. I had made a new friend who seemed like a decent person, although soon enough it became more fun to laugh
Holden’s carelessness about life displays his overall difficulty taking position among the norm. Holden states “I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It’s awful. If I’m on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody
After reading chapters 1-11 of The Catcher in the Rye, it is clear that Holden is not a reliable narrator because he lies and his actions don’t correlate with what he says . At the beginning of the story, Holden admitted to being, “the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life” (Salinger 19). Which makes him lose credibility because he admitted to being a liar and later on in the story he lies to people multiple times about his name and other personal information. In the book, Holden also mentions multiple times that, “[he] felt [very] lonesome” (Salinger 54). Since Holden felt lonely he could be exaggerating on his stories to get attention from people or to manipulate how they feel about him. Holden is always saying how things are phony
Holden’s lies and imagination in the last third of the novel are less extreme than previously. Previously Holden’s lies were focused on the people around him and he did not actually believe them. However, as the novel progresses, Holden begins to lie to himself about the present, past, and future in order to cope with the disarray his life is falling into. Holden wishes to escape his life and attempts to create plausible plans to run away. When on his date with Sally Hayes, Holden offers to take her with him; “‘what we could do is, tomorrow morning we could drive up to Massachusetts and Vermont, and all there, see’” (Salinger 146). This idea is entirely ridiculous as Holden is only sixteen and does not have the means to carry out this plan.
J.D. Salinger’s, The Catcher in the Rye successful in many respects, from its popularity among adolescent readers, to its 29 weeks spent on the New York Times Bestseller List. One part of The Catcher in the Rye that was not successful is its main character, Holden Caulfield. Holden mentions at a certain point in the novel that he aspires to be a “Catcher in the Rye”. Whether he achieved his goal is controversial amongst many readers. I believe that in the end, Holden was not successful in becoming, the “Catcher in the Rye” because he cannot change the the lives of others by protecting their innocence.