The Catcher in the Rye Analysis

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The Catcher in the Rye We’re surrounded by phonies, people who pretend to be something they’re not. They’re insincere frauds. Phonies are what’s wrong with the world. Phoniness is the fault in any person. Phonies are hypocrites who push the phoniness onto others when they are themselves.One could almost wish to go back in time to childhood where life was in black and white, where everything was innocent. Nobody was a phony during childhood. When one grows up the world becomes full of them, but it’s possible that some people just grow up to be hypocrites. Phoniness is in everyone, and people just have to learn to accept it. Everyone is a phony, in one way or another; this is the basic theme in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. The protagonist is a high school boy named Holden Caulfield. He is a deep thinker, but tends to be incredibly judgmental without looking at his own faults in comparison. He is the one who introduces the concept of phoniness. It starts with Holden telling the readers that he was yet again being kicked out of another school, this time for failing four out of his five courses. Holden could easily pass, but he refuses to do the work. Pencey is a good school, but Holden can only focus on the phoniness of the school and the students. Pencey’s ad says that they have been “Molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men” (2). But Holden’s response to this boast is that, “They don’t do any damn more molding at Pencey than they do at any other school” (2). As the readers can see quite clearly, Holden is very cynical about people already. The school is actually probably full of nice people and well-rounded individuals, but Holden just makes them out to be phonies because that’s what Holden is himself. Holden’s cynicism is actually well-founded at times. He is very observant individual almost to a fault. He overanalyzes people and will

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