How Does Holden Use Phonies In Catcher In The Rye

“It doesn’t matter how slow you go, as long as you don’t stop.” (Confucius) In the novel “Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield went through life with many struggles along the way. He had a hard time reacting to different situations and making the right choices. Because of this, he became increasingly unstable. The poem, “Desiderata,” by Max Ehrmann has a lot of life lessons that Holden could have used. The poem would have helped him make better decisions in difficult situations and go through life much easier. If Holden had read and understood the meanings in the poem, he would have been better prepared to face the people who he called “phonies.”

Holden really struggled with accepting others as he bounced from school to school. One night, he

When he was on his date with Sally at the movies, he thought, “You never saw so many phonies in all your life, everybody smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they were.” (68). With every situation that Holden went through, he seemed to be distraught at the end, because he was so caught up in the the foibles of everyone around him. The behaviors of others always made him so full of antipathy towards everyone, and if he just remembered to “be on good terms with all people,” he would have benefited greatly. At the end of his date with Sally, “they both hated each other's guts by that time. You could see there wasn't any sense trying to have an intelligent conversation.”(72) Holden had ostrasized himself once more to one of the last people he knew and liked. If he had understood the line from “Desiderata,” he would have been able to make friends and companions on his journey. If Holden knew this line from the poem, life would have been easier for him with the company of lots more friends to lean