The Catcher in the Rye

The worst thing a person can be to Holden Caulfield is phony, and he sees phonies everywhere he looks in New York. At his school, his classmates are concerned with grades, girls, and status, whereas Holden is more concerned with doing something meaningful than playing the game correctly (which echoes his admiration for Jane when she would rather keep her kings in the back row than win). At bars, he meets people who are obsessed with celebrity or being at the right nightclub. In romantic relationships, Holden struggles to see how people can be sexual with one another if they are genuinely affectionate. In every area of his life, Holden sees a veneer of inauthenticity that bothers him.

This extends to people who have genuine talent; Holden often laments that actors and musicians who are talented are showing off, and he tells Phoebe that if he became a good lawyer one day, he wouldn’t be able to tell if he was really doing good for its own sake or for the adulation. Though he respects his brother D.B., he clearly prefers D.B.’s writing that was less connected to Hollywood. D.B.’s success signals a move toward inauthenticity.

Of course, Holden is a phony too, as he frequently makes up lies to the people around him and only shares his real problems with a select few.