Essay On Holden's Ability To Lie

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to lie compulsively, and to be scared to make connections with people due to the past? Well in the book “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger, Holden is a very odd character. Throughout the book, the author Salinger really brings out Holden’s traits by using themes. The most important theme and the biggest characteristic of Holden is his ability to lie. All through the book, “The Catcher in the Rye” Holden tries to “fit in” with everyone by lying. Throughout the book, Holden encounters many situations where he isn’t his true self, and lies about himself in order to fit in with others. For instance, during chapter two, when Holden is at Mr.Spencer’s house , he says, “he really felt lousy about flunking me. So I shot the bull for a while. I told him I was a real moron, and all that stuff.” (Salinger 13) Holden during …show more content…
In the end, I think the reason why it is so hard for him to make a connection, is his ability to be authentic with someone. Holden himself has a lot of trouble being honest with people. He lies to make himself fit in with others. I think Holden himself is, in fact, the biggest phony throughout the whole book. He does many phony like things throughout the whole book. He, lied to Mr. Spencer to make him feel better about flunking him, he lies to Phoebe about Pencey, he lies to Ernest’s mother about who he is, he lies about his own name to the three girls at the bar and the prostitutes, and he lies to the waiter about his age. All of these events combined makes Holden the biggest phony in the whole book. In conclusion, the book “The Catcher in the Rye,” is a very interesting story. It's a book with almost no plot and is about a lost teenager in life. He doesn’t know what he should be doing, or even what is is doing. The story is based around a character that I think a lot of youths can relate to, which makes this book very intriguing to

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