The moral dialectic is an inner conflict of choosing good or evil to dictate one’s response to a particular event. Holden is confronted with the moral dialectic in his starkly contrasting encounters with first, Sunny the prostitute and then, the two charitable nuns. Holden, therefore, is a dynamic character because he learns to choose the side of good over evil. Consequently, Holden’s character development reveals that when people are faced with situations that demand selfless acts - the moral dialectic - an individual 's inner motivations are brought out. My response to this theme is that this constant debate of good versus evil leads to people trying to be someone who they are not; thus, people are conflicted with so many different ideals that the boundaries between good and evil become ambiguous.
The use of irony in The Catcher in the Rye evokes Holden’s
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Holden is victim to the desire of being someone he is not: a suave, sophisticated guy that gets all of the girls, a common stereotypical masculine portrayal in the movies that Holden claims to despise. Meanwhile, Holden also values staying