Holden Caulfield Phony

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"The Catcher in the Rye" is a 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger. Although it is a very controversial novel originally published for adults, it has since become popular with younger readers for its themes of teenage problems and alienation. Holden Caulfield is a 17-year-old narrator and protagonist of the novel. He speaks to the reader directly from a mental hospital or sanitarium in southern California. Throughout the story Holden has his own idea of phoniness. Holden believes that phoniness is anything hypocritical, shallow, superficial, inauthentic, or otherwise fake. He sees such phoniness everywhere in the adult world, and believes adults are so phony that they can not even see their own phoniness. He believes that once you are an adult every piece of innocence you had is gone and you become phony. Although Holden himself is a phony because he tells pointless lies, claims to like or agree with statements or ideas he hates, and goes out with girls he does not like, he still points out everybody else's phoniness. In the book "Catcher in the Rye" Holden Caulfield has his own idea of phonies biased on his …show more content…
Holden meets three Seattle girls in the Lavender room in his hotel. The Seattle Girls were three girls that visited New York as a trip away from Seattle. When Holden first meets these girls he knew something was fake about them because of their appearance."They didn't invite me to sit down at their table--mostly because they were too ignorant" says Holden when he first meets the girls. He later finds that all of them are fake and that their main goal of being in New York is to see and meet celebrities. When Holden danced with the blonde girl all she was concerned with was looking around the room to make sure she did not miss anything or anyone. "After tolerating him for a while, they began to laugh at him."(3). This shows how truly rude adulthood made them and that Holden was right about their
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