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Phony In Catcher In The Rye

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In “The Catcher in the Rye” the protagonist and narrator of the novel is Holden Caulfield. Holden is a sixteen year old junior who’s expelled from his school Pencey Prep. Holden finds the world and everyone a phony, but his younger siblings Allie and Phoebe. He focuses on the depressing parts of the world. He mentions the word phonies very often. Is it possible to grow up without becoming a phony? As you grow up you’ll eventually get to some point in your life where you become a phony. Everyone lies at one point in their lifetime. There can be different reasons for your lies. You can lie to not hurt others feelings, hide something from the other person and etc. In “The Catcher in the Rye” on the train to New York Holden meets Mrs. Morrow, …show more content…

In “The Catcher in the Rye” Holden says “I hate the movies like a poison, but I get a bang imitating them."(4.29) He says he can’t stand movies because of their phony emotions yet he still goes to the movies. Holden says “I wasn 't too crazy about him, to tell you the truth.”(3.19) Holden says that he can 't stand being around Ackley but invites him to go to the movies. Holden hates phoniness in others, but can 't avoid it himself. No one will ever be able to go through life without being a phony because being phony has been a human instinct. On the other hand, some people say it is possible to grow up without becoming a phony. Instead of lying to not hurt others feelings and hide something from the other person you can just tell the truth. If someone never did anything phony they would have to be completely honest. Even if it hurts or gives pain to the other person they will have to tell the truth. However, you’ll eventually get to some point in your life where you’ll become a phony. Therefore, it is impossible to grow up without becoming a phony. In conclusion, phoniness is something you will get eventually. You will start out being true to yourself and others, but then become a phony. Whether you like phonies or not you will become one. In “The Catcher in the Rye” Holden hates phonies, but can 't avoid becoming one himself. It is something you can 't avoid and run away from. People in general are phonies in their

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Why would Holden call others phony when he is a phony himself? Holden’s repetitive use of the word phony throughout the novel begins to show his true colors. Some examples of him calling others phony is the headmaster, the actual school Pencey Prep, Ossenburger, Sally Hayes, Stradlater, also people he did not know. J.D. Salinger reveals Holden’s “phoniness” to the audience through his hypocritical use of the words fake and phony. Holden attends the school Pencey Prep, he says his headmaster as well as the school and everyone in it is a phony, he describes it as “one of the worst schools I ever went to.

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The effect of the lies we tell can lead to a confrontation. We try desperately to avoid this, however, when the lies keep building up, and no one is communicating sooner or later someone is going to confront the matter. The argument might be ten times worse now than if someone had tried to fix it at the beginning. Second, we spare people's feelings. For example, Ericsson used a story about a man who died in Vietnam but the sergeant told his family he was missing.

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Holden prefers to stay as a kid rather than “grow up”. When Holden talks about phonies they were most of the time adults and never kids. He dislikes the idea of growing up and becoming a phony himself. He even says this when he talks about his cabin, “ I might come home when I was about thirty-five. ”(pg.213)

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Throughout the novel The Catcher in the Rye we see Holden struggling to make connections with many different people and Phoebe being the only person he really trusts. The book shows us in a couple different ways how much of a problem recognizing uniqueness really is for him through Holden's attitude about people, his values for only true friendships, and his system to cope with rejection from others. Holden's attitude towards the way he thinks people really are is very prominent in the book. He uses the word phony countless times as a way of describing a person. Anytime anyone tries to have a conversations with someone he blocks them out because he feels as though they are just liars who are bragging about things that aren't even

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While reading this book, one may notice that the main character Holden calls almost every character that we meet phonies. Never once in the book did Holden call himself a phony. The word phony was used 48 times throughout this entire novel making it one of the top 5 words used in this book. The Catcher in the Rye is a novel written by J.D. Salinger. This book is narrated by the main character Holden Caulfield.

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Holden Caulfield lives his life as an outsider to his society, because of this any we (as a reader) find normal is a phony to him. Basically, every breathing thing in The Catcher in the Rye is a phony expect a select few, like Jane Gallagher. What is a phony to Holden and why is he obsessed with them? A phony is anyone who Holden feels is that living their authentic life, like D.B. (his older brother). Or simply anyone who fits into society norms, for example, Sally Hayes.

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He lies intensely throughout the course of the novel, starting from lying to Ackley at the very beginning of the book. From his sarcastic tone in his conversation with other people, readers can denote his own cynical view on the world. Holden views adulthood as phony, hypocritical and fake while childhood in his mind is a world of innocence, honesty, and joy. That is the main reason why he wants to be a “catcher in the rye” to protect and save all the children from falling into the phony adult world. Holden Caulfield’s despise of fakeness causes his resistance of growing into a more mature person, with the lack of ability to interact with other people, make him a

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Although, no one is genuine all the time. Everyone, on occasions, can have a tendency to be phony. Phony is when someone pretends to be someone they are not. Many people are phony when they are trying to impress others. It can be hard to tell, at first, if someone is being phony or genuine.

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1378 Words | 6 Pages

Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual”. In the book Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield’s lies become habitual throughout the book. Holden is a sixteen-year-old boy, who has been kicked out of several schools including, most recently, Pencey Prep. Holden’s younger brother, Allie, died when Holden was only thirteen and his older brother is too busy working for Hollywood to care about Holden. Although his mother cares immensely for him, Holden saddens her by failing academically.

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Many people have told lies and been told lies ,however the biggest lie of all is lying to oneself. Everyone has been told to share the truth because even though the truth will hurt others now, a carried out lie will hurt them a lot more in the future. It 's better to do right than to live in lies such as don 't hide all your faults they won 't just go away, you need to learn from your mistakes. In Les Miserables and The Kite Runner a man 's reputation is not as important as his family. As in giving up yourself for another and to be happy, like leaving your homeland where you are known and in charge to become a working man and make your family happy.

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1002 Words | 5 Pages

Holden knew Ackley was lying about his summer, so, he called Ackley a phony. In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, Holden Caulfield 's perspective on people give the reader a different and unique point of view. What is phoniness? According to the Merriam Webster dictionary a phony is a person who is not honest or sincere who says things that are meant to deceive. Therefore, phoniness is someone who doesn 't act as themselves, they deceive people by acting like someone they aren’t, even themselves.

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498 Words | 2 Pages

In Tobias Wolff’s short story “The Liar,” the protagonist, James, lies to help him construct a new identity outside of his family. James tells morbid lies about his mother in order to distance himself from her. Since, the loss of his father, James no longer associates with people who are like him. The lies started after his father’s death and his mother starts noticing how much differently he was acting. Since his mother is treating him like she is disappointed in him, James begins to devolve into a state of repressed bitterness.

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Stephanie Ericsson begins her explorative essay, “The Ways We Lie,” with a personal anecdote of all the lies she fabricated in one day. She told her bank that a deposit was in the mail when it was not, told a client that the traffic had been bad when she was late for other reasons, told her partner that her day was fine when it was really exhausting, and told her friend she was too busy for lunch when she just was not hungry, all in the course of a day. She shifts from talking about herself to talking about everyone, claiming that all people lie, exaggerate, minimize, keep secrets, and tell other lies. But, like herself, most still consider themselves honest people. She describes a week in which she tried to never tell a lie; it was debilitating, she claims.

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Lying has not been formally considered morally wrong or right regardless of the severity. Although it’s near impossible to go through a whole day without even stretching the truth once and decide which types of lies are okay or not. Stephanie Ericsson uses strong metaphors and personal experiences in “The Ways We Lie” to justify the use of our everyday lying. This unbiased essay will help readers decide whether it’s okay to lie on a daily basis. Ericsson starts out with saying she told the bank that her deposit was in the mail even though she hadn't written out the check (495).

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The Art of Lying In our society, many people assume that lying is something wrong to do; they use to say that you always have to tell the truth no matter the situation. I believe those people are certainly wrong because it is impossible for any human being to always tell the truth, Mark Twain said “Lying is universal—we all do it.” This world would be so bizarre if everyone would speak only the truth. It is just something that would never happen, but people are fooling themselves thinking that lying is wrong, that we must tell the truth always.

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