Catcher in the Rye Essay

International Baccalaureate World Literature

What is phony?

As a teenager, Holden Caulfield complains about the phoniness of adult world and searches desperately for a person who can help him cross the road, that is, grow up without losing his innocence. However, he is contradicting himself by being the greatest phony of all. He lies to strangers to protect himself, and he also says others are all phonies just for not facing the reality. Throughout the novel The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger provides many pieces of evidences which indicate that phoniness is the pretension, and shallowness actions that everyone tends to do and one will hardly realized about his own phoniness.

Phoniness is the pretension that everyone will do at some stage during their life, in fact, anyone could be a phony. For example, in the novel, when Holden meets Mrs. Morrow on the train, he enjoys fooling her by lying about her son Ernest. He tells her his name is Rudolph Schmidt, the name of the Janitor at Pencey Prep. Holden says in his own mind, “I didn’t feel like giving her my whole life history. Rudolf Schmidt was the name of the janitor of our dorm.” (55) Holden is full of contempt for adults. He feels like a failure because he is jealous of Ernest, the fact that his mother is proud of him. Holden enjoys talking to Mrs. Marrow, because he can pretend that everything in his life is normal. After this moment of pretense passes and he remembers that he is in trouble, he decides that Mrs. Morrow is deluded about her stupid son. So he enjoys fooling her, laughing at her secretly. He makes the ultimate escape at this point in the book, running away from Pencey and leaving the reality behind. The incident on the train is only the first of many examples where Holden pretends to be someone else, manipulates the people around him and acts like a huge phony. Starting with Mrs. Morrow, Holden engages in angry, behavior, lashing out at others. Holden is very close to a mental breakdown, the stress of his life has crushed him to relieve the pressure that he feels by role playing. Therefore, this proves that even a person that criticizes phoniness like Holden can be a phony sometimes.

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One often doesn’t recognize his own phoniness although he is certainly a phony by viewing in an objective way. When Holden is explaining the ways of Pencey Prep—which is in Holden’s word: a phony, cruel world with full of phonies—to his sister Phoebe. His judgments indicate his thought about such schools. He thinks that they’re phony places and their main goal is to prepare students to become a totally phony to survive in the adult world. However, Holden is in fact more of a phony than the people that he accuses. Holden believes that all adults are phony because of the fact that they take responsibility for their lives, even when things don’t go your way, adults have to cope. Holden finds it particularly difficult to accept that his parents are able to move on from Allie’s death. His parents move forward, continue to live, to work and earn money. Unfortunately for Holden, he doesn’t realize that life has to go on anyways, even though you bear a deep sadness and loss in your heart. D.B., Holden’s older brother is also a phony in Holden’s perspective, because he writes for Hollywood instead of serious books. Yet Holden himself, who refuses to participate in being a responsible student, doesn’t see his own faults. In fact, his family is not pretending to live, they are not phony. What is phony is that Holden’s refusal to grow up. Holden seems to be phony when he pretends to remain a child, when he knows that, he is maturing into a young adult. And it is also phony of Holden to say that he really cares about Jane, yet he never calls her. Holden is a very depressed person. He is stuck in a grief cycle over Allie’s death, refuses to accept responsibility and accuses everyone around him who lives their life of being a phony. Although Holden admits that he is phony while criticizing “phonies” he sees, “I am the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life…” (16) However, he still doesn’t notice that in fact, he actually is a phony like everyone else he criticized. He will never or hardly realize it because he can never see himself clearly like most of the people.

Phoniness is the shallowness actions that people use to do when they want to escape from the reality. Throughout the book, Holden participates in activities that would make him seem older: drinking, smoking, living on his own, and even hiring a prostitute. Holden wants to seem more like an adult, in a superficial way, because he’s insecure about where he fits in the world, so he tries to act older. For example, the date with Sally is drenched in phoniness. When they are watching a play, Holden says, “I hate actors. They never act like people. They just think they do.” (117) Holden believes actors are phony. Then, he also claims that movies are “awful,” “putrid,” and “can ruin you,” (120) His hatred for actors and the movie first actually begins when he berates his brother, D.B., to selling out his talent and writing for the movies. At the end of the date, when Sally turns down Holden’s plan to run away, he begins to insult her in order to save his feelings. He opened up to her in a way that he hasn’t opened to anyone else, but she completely shoots him down. In order not to feel hurt, he needs to put her down to show that her opinions weren’t worth anything in the first place. Holden thinks he can “cope” with others well when he pretends or being shallow like others. He only wants to run away from the painful world by acting like a phony.

In conclusion, through all the evidences above, phoniness can be affected when people want to protect themselves from something or even the reality; it can be the superficial way of a person to do things for varies of reasons. Phoniness exists in our society today just as it does in the book. However, people will never realize about their phoniness without others telling them, just like they can never see themselves without a mirror. Just like Holden, eventually leading himself to a mental breakdown.

Word Count: 1098

Sources: Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye.

Boston: Little, 1951.