Lost in a Crowd of Phonies
Throughout the novel, Holden seems to be excluded from the world around him. He feels trapped and doesn’t have a sense of belonging. We see this when he says to Mr Spencer that he fells trapped on “the other side” of life , and he continually attempts to find his way in this world full of “phonies”.
As the novel develops, it is clear that Holden alienates and guards his emotions as a way of protecting himself. He uses his isolation to prove that he is better than everyone around him and see’s little point in interacting with them. This affects the relationship he shares with other characters in the novel. Specifically girls; the truth is that the interactions he has with girls in the novel usually confuse and overwhelm …show more content…
We see this when he gets off the train in New York, the first thing he does is go to the phone booth. He only leaves the phone booth about 20 minutes later, never actually picking up the phone. All he wants to do is connect with someone-anyone- but he has such high standards that only his little sister Phoebe can live up too.
His relationship with Phoebe is profound and pure; she is six years younger than him but he loves his sister dearly and admires her. His description of her suggests to us that she is the only noble character in a world of superficial phony adults.
Relationships play a huge role in the novel, or rather the lack of relationships that Holden shares with people. They represent what Holden fears most about the adult world: complexity, unpredictability and the potential for conflict and change. As Holden demonstrates at the Museum of Natural History, he likes the world to be silent frozen and predictable. And instead of acknowledging that adult hood scares him. He invents a fantasy that adulthood is a world of hollowness and hypocrisy and the world his sister lives in -childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity and honesty. Holden explains that adults are inevitable phonies, and the worst part of it is, they can’t see their own phoniness. Phoniness stands as a symbol of everything that’s wrong in the world he is forced to be in. It provides him an excuse to withdraw into his judgemental
Throughout the novel, Holden seems to be excluded from the world around him. He feels trapped and doesn’t have a sense of belonging. We see this when he says to Mr Spencer that he fells trapped on “the other side” of life , and he continually attempts to find his way in this world full of “phonies”.
As the novel develops, it is clear that Holden alienates and guards his emotions as a way of protecting himself. He uses his isolation to prove that he is better than everyone around him and see’s little point in interacting with them. This affects the relationship he shares with other characters in the novel. Specifically girls; the truth is that the interactions he has with girls in the novel usually confuse and overwhelm …show more content…
We see this when he gets off the train in New York, the first thing he does is go to the phone booth. He only leaves the phone booth about 20 minutes later, never actually picking up the phone. All he wants to do is connect with someone-anyone- but he has such high standards that only his little sister Phoebe can live up too.
His relationship with Phoebe is profound and pure; she is six years younger than him but he loves his sister dearly and admires her. His description of her suggests to us that she is the only noble character in a world of superficial phony adults.
Relationships play a huge role in the novel, or rather the lack of relationships that Holden shares with people. They represent what Holden fears most about the adult world: complexity, unpredictability and the potential for conflict and change. As Holden demonstrates at the Museum of Natural History, he likes the world to be silent frozen and predictable. And instead of acknowledging that adult hood scares him. He invents a fantasy that adulthood is a world of hollowness and hypocrisy and the world his sister lives in -childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity and honesty. Holden explains that adults are inevitable phonies, and the worst part of it is, they can’t see their own phoniness. Phoniness stands as a symbol of everything that’s wrong in the world he is forced to be in. It provides him an excuse to withdraw into his judgemental