How Does Holden Caulfield Defiant

No matter how many adventures somebody goes on, some people just don't change. Holden Caulfield, the main protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye, is a good example of this. The Catcher in the Rye is a story written by J.D. Salinger. It was first published in 1951 by Little, Brown and Company. The story takes place in the years of 1948 or 1949, following three days in the life of a high school student named Holden Caulfield. When he was expelled from Pencey, a high school he was formerly going to, instead of facing his parents, he attempted to run away and survive on his own in the “phony” adult world. Throughout all his adventures, Holden maintained three characteristics: being cynical, being metaphorically blind, and being defiant.

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His most common acts of defiance are running away and being a liar. Holden ran away from Pencey, and avoided going home just to avoid the punishment his father would dish out upon him. Phoebe says exactly what he would do to him: "Daddy's going to kill you." (173) Holden lied many times, broke many laws, and is a general hypocrite in this sense. He attempts to get sympathy quite a few times throughout the story, going so far as to claim he has a “tiny little tumor on the brain” (58) when asked why he was getting out of school so early by Ernest Morrow’s mother. He also lies about his age multiple times, claiming he is “twenty-two” (94) when asked by Sunny the prostitute his age, which she doubts saying “like fun you are.” (94) He also smokes quite a lot, smoking over two packs since he left Pencey. "Finally I sat up in bed and smoked another cigarette. It tasted lousy. I must've smoked around two packs since I left Pencey." (100) He is a habitual drinker and has a tendency to lie about his age in order to get alcohol, going to far as to give a waiter a “very cold stare” (Salinger 69) in an attempt to convince him that he just insulted him by not thinking he was twenty-one by his size, even though he is only sixteen during the duration of the book. He still fails to get alcohol multiple times without proper identification, though. Another thing he lies about is his name, claiming to be “Jim Steele” (94) when talking to Sunny and

This is how he is blind in a sense. When Holden stayed at Mr. Antolini's house, an incident happened. "What he was doing was, he was sitting on the floor right next to the couch, in the dark and all, and he was sort of petting me or patting me on the head." (192) Holden instantly assumed that Mr. Antolini was being perverted with him. There is a good chance though, that instead of being flitty with him, Mr. Antolini was actually just attempting to comfort him after everything he had been through like a father would with his young son. He also assumes that Catholics only care about you if you're a Catholic, like them. “Catholics are always trying to find out if you’re a Catholic” (112), which caused conversations to become awkward afterward if the asked person is not Catholic, or at least in Holden’s mind it becomes awkward. The nuns that he meets while eating breakfast prove him wrong. They didn’t question whether he was Catholic or not. They accepted him as who he was, not judging him based on