Holden Caulfield Conformity

After witnessing the events of World War II that shattered seemingly stable and familiar realms, Americans longed for a return to normalcy and found comfort in a society embodied by consumerism and assimilation, becoming defined by their “cookie-cutter” cultural conformity. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951, with the United States’s economy booming as a result of the war and consumerism on the rise. The novel chronicles Holden Caulfield, cynical sixteen year old and private school degenerate, and the depletion of his emotional resources as he roams New York City in search of the authenticity he believed he was deprived of in private school. In Holden’s contempt for conformity and his search for individuality, he …show more content…
It is only through this democratic nature of his audience that Salinger achieves any version of that ideal community of sensibility and response whose essential absence determines Holden's resistance to the world as it is (Rowe). Also well established by this time period was the link between neurosis, self-destructive behavior, and social maladaptation on the one hand, and artistic sensibility and special insight on the other (Shaw). This collective sense of anxiety in Americans is what brought them to seek a sense of uniformity throughout the country. Conformity was common, as young and old alike followed group norms rather than striking out on their own, as even elderly Mr. Spencer berates Holden with notions of “ ‘life [being] game that one plays according to the rules’” (Salinger 11). These features of conformity became elements of the “good” life and outliers to this concept were often treated with disdain in this era (Moss and Wilson), and anomalies were only ever viewed as the hero in literature, where protagonists who used their individuality to their favor. Salinger takes an innovative perspective on this conviction and depicts the role of the outcast individual in a new light; Rowe maintains that “like earlier …show more content…
He combats this, then, with his cynical skepticism towards the world. He believes everyone he comes in contact with has a fake persona, almost an alter ego, that they utilize at times when they need to fit in. To him, everyone is a “phony”, a word he generously throws around, with a hidden agenda. Although he doesn't necessarily isolate himself physically, he does it emotionally, refusing to form personal ties with anyone beyond his siblings. Despite spending time with his Pencey peers, like Ackley and Stradlater, Caulfield searches desperately for reasons to avoid maintaining actual friendships with them, from Stradlater’s hidden unhygienic tendencies to Ackley’s pimples. And yet, despite his scorn towards others, the thing Holden fears most is loneliness. He constantly seeks conversation as a form of reassurance, finding it in random cab drivers and even hired prostitutes. In distancing himself away from people he believes are frauds, he believes he is making progress towards his search for identity, that cutting off phony people will prevent him from ever becoming a phony himself. Instead, he creates an environment for himself in which he has no one to turn to in time of need. There are multiple instances in the novel in which he finds himself bored in a phonebooth, desolately searching for someone to call and coming up

Show More