Phonies
As we’ve discussed frequently in
class, Holden has a very extensive list of things that annoy him about people. He
is “depressed” by people pretending to be something they’re not, or having an
agenda with him, or performing in any way that would have required rehearsal. He
is very much put off by phoniness. However, he himself does not hide the fact
that he is a pathological liar. This seems to be a huge contradiction. Even
though he hates people who put on a front to seem normal or cool to other
people, he never shows his true self to other people, except us, the readers.
His
justification seems to be that he’s not lying to seem cool or to get benefits.
He just can’t help it, and lies for the sake of the lie. He even lies to the
people he likes sometimes, just for the fun of it. He also has a list of
criteria that must be met for him to like someone. He pretty much goes for
honesty and humbleness, even though he himself can’t do those things. The
people who usually fit these criteria are not famous or well-liked: usually he
ends up having an affinity for little kids or people who are kind without an
agenda, like the nuns he talks to at the train station.
I
wonder if Holden’s obsession with phoniness and his natural affinity for
younger, more honest people has to do with his brother Allie’s death. For him,
Allie is permanently stuck in his youth. We’ve already seen that Holden has been
severely affected by Allie’s death, since he broke all the windows in the
garage with his hand. I think that as well as physical aspects, Holden’s entire
personality has changed since Allie’s death. I get the feeling that Holden didn’t
have such an obsession with purity of intention before Allie’s death, and I
definitely don’t think he was such a big liar. I wonder where Holden’s ideology
will take him in the rest of the book.
I think Holden's hate for phonies is why he likes kids so much. They will tell you exactly what you are think without any regard for the consequences. I think Holden does not like himself because he is phony. He knows that now that he is older his innocence is lost and he will be fake no matter what but he doesn't want to be.
ReplyDeleteI think there's some logic to seeing Holden's version of lying as different from "phoniness," and it has everything to do with his motives. He often lies about being sick or injured (brain surgery, etc.), or in a simply more "fictional" way--he'd rather be Rudolph Schmitt and talk idle fiction than admit why his nose is bleeding or try to explain why he's riding this train alone in the middle of the night. Holden prefers an amusing, improvised fiction to confronting his own issues. And elsewhere he's uncomfortably *candid* with the reader when describing his own confusions about sex, or depicting himself getting beaten up--there's little sense that he could be trying to make himself seem "cooler" in our view. There's not a "show-offy" quality to Holden's lies.
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