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Phoniness In The Catcher In The Rye By J. D. Salinger

1002 Words5 Pages
Sobrado, 1 Alexandra Sobrado 1B August 30, 2016 Who Runs the World...? Phoniness Holden Caulfield has a unique way of thinking, when he sees people he instantly begins to think they are phony. Throughout the whole book Holden calls everybody a phony, he thinks that everybody is fake. One example is Ackley. He begins to tell everybody about his summer and how he almost hooked up with a girl. Holden knew Ackley was lying about his summer, so, he called Ackley a phony. In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, Holden Caulfield 's perspective on people give the reader a different and unique point of view. What is phoniness? According to the Merriam Webster dictionary a phony is a person who is not honest or sincere who says things that are meant to deceive. Therefore, phoniness is someone who doesn 't act as themselves, they deceive people by acting like someone they aren’t, even themselves. Holden describes phonies all throughout the book, he keeps calling out people for being fake. "The waiter was waiting for her to move out of the way, but she didn 't even notice him. It was funny. You could tell the waiter didn 't like her much you could tell even the Navy guy didn 't like her much even though he was dating her. And I didn 't like her much. Nobody did" (41). In the quote above Holden calls out the Navy guy for being phony because he is dating Lillian Simmons even though he didn 't like her much. Therefore, he is being someone he isn 't and lying to himself.
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