Catcher in the Rye Essay: Holden and His Phony Family :: Catcher Rye Essays

Holden and His Phony Family in The Catcher in the Rye The protagonist, Holden Caulfield, interacts with galore(postnominal) people end-to-end J.D. Salingers novel The Catcher in the Rye, but plausibly none have as much impact on him as certain members of his immediate family. The ways Holden acts around or reacts to the various members of his family hand over the reader a direct view of Holdens philosophy surrounding each member. Holden makes discoverence to the word phony forty-four separate times throughout the novel (Corbett 68-73). Each time he seems to be referring to the subject of this fiction as -- someone who discriminates against others, is a hypocrite about something, or has manifestations of compliance (Corbett 71). Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, Holden describes and interacts with various members of his family. The way he duologue about or to each gives you some idea of whether he thinks they argon phony or normal. A few of his accounts make it more paten t than others to discover how he classifies each family member. From the very first page of the novel, Holden begins to refer to his p arnts as distant and generalizes both his father and mother frequently throughout his chronicle. One example is ...my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything personal about them. Theyre quite fragile about anything like that, oddly my father. Theyre nice and solely - Im not saying that - but theyre also touchy as hell (Salinger 1). Holdens father is a lawyer and therefore he considers him phony because he views his fathers occupation unswervingly as a latitude of his fathers personality. For example, when Holden is talking to Phoebe about what he wants to be when he grows up, he cannot answer her question and proceeds to give her his opinion about their fathers occupation.. Lawyers are all right, I guess - but it doesnt appeal to me, I said. I suppose theyre all right if they go around saving innocent guys lives all the time, and like that, but you dont do that kind of stuff if youre a lawyer. all in all you do is make a lot of dough and play golf game and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot-shot. How would you know you werent being a phony? The trouble is, you wouldnt (Salinger 172).