Aaahhh… The Phoniness of the World.

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, 252 Pages


Last term, I have to choose a recommended book to criticize on for a course on child and adolescent development. I very much wanted to write on the Brothers Grimm due to my liking to read the Grimms’ manipulation of happy fairy tales into fearsome ones, but I eventually find J. D. Salinger’s controversial ‘Catcher in the Rye’ to be more interesting as it allows me to explore the minds of adolescents and adults from different perspectives.

The story follows the series of events that occurred to its main character, Holden Caulfield, in a matter of days that spanned from his being expelled from a good school to his going home. Throughout his journey home, Caulfield spoke about his family, school, teenage angst, girls and love. More importantly, the scaffolding of his thinking provides readers opportunities to delve into the minds of adolescents who are represented by Caulfield. Very much of the time, Caulfield criticizes the phoniness of the world – especially the world of adulthood which he thinks is pretentious. This implores that the children’s world is innocent and being an adolescent, Caulfield is caught between the two worlds. He finds that it is difficult to let go of his innocence, whereas it is also difficult for him to accept and penetrate the phony world of adults. Eventually, Caulfield came to a realization that it is inevitable that he has to grow up, but would he still choose to be his younger self or mature with time, in compliance with all the phoniness that surround him?

Written in 1951, what Salinger wrote is still very much relevant to the society today, especially in terms of the misunderstanding between adolescents and adults due to their different worlds. No, their worlds are not much of different actually. It is just the different perceptions that both groups have on the other that resulted in their inability to have a good communicative relationship. I have never thought that the story printed on the very brown papers would be of much interest to me. Whenever I look at old books, I always have this thought that they will not interest me. Ironically, I was caught up with Caulfield’s narration of the world as seen from his eyes. Although sometimes Caulfield can be an unreliable narrator due to his telling readers only what he wants to tell, and perhaps have manipulated the truth from being told, ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ was able to project me to a state in which I reflected very much on the phoniness that Caulfield described throughout my winter break. Although I cannot agree entirely with Caulfield, I somewhat cannot deny the phoniness in the people and the world that show up in my life. I do not want this to be true, but I get upset when proven wrong. True enough, I cannot agree totally with Caulfield, but I also cannot deny what Shakespeare said is wrong, that “all the world’s a stage”. Prove me wrong.