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The Catcher in the Rye, a coming-of-age story, highlights the complexities and dynamics of maturity versus adolescence. In this excerpt Salinger highlights the inquisitive nature of Holden, framing him as an observant individual who is still susceptible to the disillusionment of the world around him. He – in his perceptions - delves further than surface appearance and passes judgment on people who become perhaps comical in substance. Yet, his attributing of people to be phony shows the superficiality of his perceptions, favoring the stereotypical and categorical assumptions above the judgments of complexity.
In the excerpt, Holden differentiates himself from the ‘phonies’ around him, categorizing them by their surface appearance; “girls with terrific legs”; “girls with lousy legs”; “girls that looked like swell girls’; and “girls that looked like they’d be bitches if you knew them”. He goes on to consider what will “happen” to them, before further categorizing the guys they would marry; “You figured most of them would probably marry dopey guys”; “Guys that always talk about how many miles they get to a gallon in their goddam cars”; “Guys that get sore and childish as hell if you beat them at golf, or even just some stupid game like ping-pong”; “Guys that are very mean”; “Guys that never read books”. He lists attributes that are arguably, phony in origin and only serve to support the superficiality of the world he removes himself from. The inauthenticity of these people strikes him enough to perpetuate his themes of appearance categorization. Where people either; care about appearances, or don’t. Holden feels overwhelmed, and outnumbered by the phonies who care about their appearance, notably, these are the people he observes whilst sitting under the clock tower. It is easy to understand that these are not the only people there, yet they’re the ones he observes. Whilst Holden strives to exempt himself from this claim of being phony, written as a narrator searching for an empathetic and sympatric audience, he becomes subject to a personal bias and inauthenticity which translates through the written word and into his conveyance. He is, therefore, the exemplification of the hollow appearances which he claims to despise.
Salinger writes Holden as a character with cyclical ideas of cynical isolation, utilizing these phony attributes as an emblem to which he can comparatively analyze the different observations he makes. As a narrator, whilst his observations are biased, they’re still topically insightful, into the people he critiques, and himself. Holden would like to believe that the world is as simplistic as he observes, and as categorical as he critiques. Yet, it does not adhere to these binary standards through which he judges, and even he cannot fit into that niche.
As the novel's main area of conflict is immediately framed to that of Holden’s psyche (where the novel opens on him in a mental hospital), it immediately skews the perception of Holden as an individual fixated on cynicism, and expressing as such through bitterness, longing, and initial rejection of people based on being phony. Whilst he attempts to connect to people throughout – the excerpt is taken from a chapter where we see as such – his inability to interact with people as an adult, or refrain from retreating from people as a child, is the cause of various levels of conflict. Throughout the novel, Holden is seen to push away others through immaturity and obnoxious behavior, which shows his shunning of the complexities of adulthood.
We see this bitterness and cynicism in Holden’s categorizations of the guys that are the result of what “happens to them”, where they are the girls he observes. Through the colloquialisms in language, Holden uses throughout the novel (and therefore this excerpt), Salinger highlights the immaturity ingrained into Holden at an innate level – despite his attempts to counter this immaturity, he cannot deconstruct a part of his personality that offends him, which causes his struggles with connecting to people who are adults.
Throughout the novel – and in this excerpt – Holden is seen to be his antagonist. Whilst he perceives adults to not view him on a peer-like level, typically the reason for this is his conveyance of maturity or lack thereof, and his self-isolation through categorizing himself as different. We see this, especially in the excerpt, where instead of inserting himself into the interactions he observes, he watches and critiques. He alienates himself from regular people, creating a solid manifestation of loneliness and isolation. It is not that people resent him being there, it is that he resents being present in people’s lives, which is a source of pain – in his inability to connect – and yet somehow a sense of security – this inability to connect to strangers and phonies is nothing new to him, and something he has come to understand.
Bloom, Harold, ed. JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Infobase Publishing, 2014.
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