Social Conditioning: Holden Caulfield And Chris Mccandless

Words: 804
Pages: 4

Going through social conditioning at some point in our lives seems to be the normal thing. Although this may be true, a minority will try to avoid these social constructs, and these kinds of people are seen as outcasts. This includes Holden Caulfield from Catcher in The Rye, and Chris McCandless. Both characters struggled when those who inherit the grand beliefs of our society surrounded them. Moral authenticity is being able to think in your own way and being able to confront your true shadow self. The deeper the physiological connection to our conditioning, the more intense the emotional reaction when our pre-programmed beliefs are challenged. Factors such as family, life, spirituality, and religion all contribute to an individual’s social …show more content…
For example, McCandless does not see education the way many people do. Many people go to college in order to get a job and make a living. McCandless on the other hand could not care less about his “college education” when he says to Mr. Franz, “you don’t need to worry about me. I have a college education. I’m not destitute. I’m living like this by choice” (Krakauer 54). McCandless lived his life the way that most people find absurd, such as Mr. Franz did. Holden compares to McCandless in this way because he does not enjoy his life at Pencey while the other students live happily in their private school lives. The other students are a victim of the social constructs while Holden is drowning in the constructs created by this private school and is struggling to escape. Similar to this, Montag in Fahrenheit 451 acts the same way and does not fall into the social constructs of the society he lives in. Although everyone around him including his wife sees technology as their holy grail, Montag does not which proves his moral authenticity when he sticks to his own beliefs throughout the entire novel, despite what his peers thought. This factor proves the moral authenticity of all three characters involved because they all stay true to their own beliefs about their …show more content…
Holden struggled with facing his own shadow self because he went through the entire novel masking his true emotions. This makes his moral authenticity extremely weak because he hid behind his “people shooter” hat in order to mask his deep insecurities that he did not want to expose. Gene from A Separate Peace compares to Holden because throughout the entire novel he did not reveal his true intentions and emotions about Finny. He lies to himself constantly so he is unable to achieve moral authenticity because he won’t accept his shadow self. He is envious of Finny throughout the whole novel but he changes his jealousy and turns it around on Finny so that he can mask his emotions even more. Holden is similar in the fact that he calls everyone surrounding him “phonies”, when he is one of them too because he hides his true feelings and emotions and tries to act like a different