These backstabbers, Liars, and Fake girls resemble this theme of not trusting, holding the truth in and pain. Like in Catcher in the Rye, Holden starts to drop hints of incidents of his past to the readers like in the movie Mean Girls. The girls become so fed up and tell secrets to each other and the truth begins to come together. Through out this movie backstabbing is swarming the school. Like Holden, Regina is always agreeing with something, but her actions contradict her. As for Holden he says he like Arthur Childs, but arguing with someone and calling them a bastard does not necessarily give off the signal of liking someone. They all have low self esteem as does Holden. Also when Holden can't find someone that can fill his desire he moves on to another person hoping to meet someone who will talk to him, as do these girls. Once they get what they want they move on. They are major liars and phonies.
Who is the real phony in the book? Why does Holden claim the adult world phony, when he too lies? Is Holden trying to say more?
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ReplyDeleteAs we have found out, Holden isn't exactly the most reliable narrator and as you have stated Holden appears to be the real phony in his actions. However, I believe Holden may appear to be just as phony, in what he does and says, as his perception of the adult world but at heart I think he's is truly afraid of being "phony". He also says in the book that he really gets a kick out of it, so maybe Holden Caulfield is just amusing himself or is too scared to give out his real information. Society can also really shape a person's actions or sayings and I think that is what is happening with Holden. I think Holden is trying to hide from the adult world by lying; he is giving himself a mask to hide behind. Holden Caulfield may not say it but I think that he is a phony in the sense of going against his own morals. Although, he may or may not realize it. His actions, sayings and thoughts do appear as though they have much more meaning than what is being given to us; they can give us the sense that he is just trying to cope with his loneliness, just trying to amuse himself or that maybe he is just scared of giving someone he doesn't know his real identity.
ReplyDeleteThe way J.D. Salinger makes Holden voice sounds as if he in fact is the phony. Holden thinks of the adult world as fake but in reality, he is a rather fake person in himself. He tends to lie to us about things that happen in his adventure. He contradicts himself in cases where he says that he hates it so much but actually not really. Another reason Holden might be thinking everything is phony is because he knows that he is a huge liar. He does tell us that he knows he can go on runs where it's just lie after lie. I think Holden is afraid of the fact that maybe everyone else that he talks to goes on these lying runs and that he can't trust anybody if he knows he lies so much. There is plenty of ways to think about how Holden thinks of the world as phony, but I think the lying aspect is certainly one to think about.
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