The book Catcher in the Rye is a story of Holden Caulfield’s thoughts about life and the world around him. Holden tells many of his opinions about people and takes the reader on a 5-day trip into his mind. Holden, throughout the book, made other people feel inferior to his own. I can relate to this because although I do not view people inferior to me, I judge others unequally. Holden and I both have similar judgements of people from the way they act and behave. We also share feelings about motivation as well as lack of it. After reading this book, I came to the conclusion that Holden and I are much more similar than I initially elieved.
Holden portrayed others to be inferior to his own kind all throughout the book. He made several references as to how people aren’t as perfect as he was. “The reason Stradlater fixed himself up to look good was because he was madly in love with himself. ” Holden had a difficults with no being good. He was afraid of not having any special talents or abilities and and did other thi8ngs to make himself look tough. “Boy, I sat at that goddam bar till around one o’clock or so, getting drunk as a bastard. I could hardly see straight. ” Holden tried all he could to try to be cool he was faking it just to fit in.
He drank, cursed and criticized life l to make it seem he was like he knew of his habits. I myself have found me doing this at times, also. I, at times, feel the need to fit in to a group and do things similar to what others do in order to be accepted by others, but I do have my limitations. I smoked a cigarratte once by myself cause I saw everybody doing that so I was like let me see how it is, I tried it and it didn’t grow on me but that was only once. Holden and I both put people on levels higher and lower other than our own for amount of knowledge and and characteristic
Holden used the term ‘phonies’ to describe more than a few people in this book. He used the term to be what a person is if they don’t act themselfs and follow other people’s ways. Holden didn’t like phonies, he thought of them as if they were trying to show off. He didn’t like it when they showed off because it seemed fake and unnatural every time they would act like it.. “At the end of the first act we went out with all the other jerks for a cigarette. What a deal that was. You never saw so many phonies in all your life, everybody smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear how sharp they were. “