Essay On Holden Caulfield Phony

In J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, almost everything Holden encounters he refers to as phony. He does not like anything fake, especially when people act like something they are really not. Holden is so confused about the phoniness that he fails to realize that he himself is just as guilty of being phony as everyone else around him. Holden desires someone to care about, but his constant lookout for phoniness in people makes it hard for him to make any sort of connection. In a world of so much confusion and loneliness, all Holden wants in his life is a connection with someone who cares about him as much as he has the potential to care about them, however he cannot seem to find it through all the phoniness he perceives in the world, even though he is just as phony as the people surrounding him. …show more content…
He goes to Ernie’s, where Ernie is playing the piano. Holden says, “I’m not sure what the name of the song was that he was playing, but whatever it was, he was really stinking it up,” (Salinger 110). Holden goes on to say that Ernie acts like a phony, but before, Holden was saying that Ernie actually is really good. Holden is being phony here because he actually probably does like Ernie’s playing, but he is jealous of all the attention Ernie gets for it. Holden often times shows his jealousy by calling people phony. Holden thinks, “Then he and old Sally started talking about a lot of people they both knew. It was the phoniest conversation you ever heard in your life,” (Salinger 166). This is when Holden is on a date with Sally Hayes. During the date Sally strikes up a conversation with a boy named George, who she had met a while ago. Holden becomes jealous and calls both Sally and George a phony. In reality he is just jealous that George has Sally’s attention and he does