Discussing the theme ’phoniness’

Discuss the theme ’phoniness’, with close reference to three characters or incidents.

In the novel The Catcher in the Rye there is a term used several times through the course of the novel; ‘phoney’ or ‘phoniness’, and the person who uses these words is the main character; Holden Caulfield. He is an adolescent boy who enjoys the company of honest and loyal people such as people Holden thinks he can trust. He despises generally adulthood but above all false identities, people that always follow the mainstream.

Having Holden generally not favouring mainstream living many examples and quotations were easily found and selected. The first three examples are citations mentioned early in the novel by Holden. The fourth quote is found further on in the novel.

Holden speaks to Mr Spencer about him leaving Elkton Hills and its reasons. He doesn’t directly tell Mr Spencer why he left the school but simply shows his thoughts about the school; -“One of the biggest reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded by phonies. (…) For instance, they had this headmaster, Mr Haas, that was the phoniest bastard I ever met in my life.”

At one time Holden talks about this religious guy who is never ashamed to get down on his knees and pray to God, according to Holden this is fake, phoney
-“He said he talked to Jesus all the time. Even when he was driving his car. That killed me. I can just see the big phoney bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send him a few more stiffs.”

On one occasion Holden describes a relationship to a friend, but even that is ‘phoney’. –“He was at least a pretty friendly guy, Stradlater. It was partly a phoney kind of friendly, but at least he always said hello to Ackley and all.” Here we can see that Holden is very vague with his term ‘phoney’ and that he comments a lot of different things to be phoney. In comparison to these examples this quotation is found deeper in the novel.
Holden explains more deeply on his feelings on his use of the term ‘Phoney’.
“-‘You ought to go to a boys’ school sometime. Try it sometime,’ I said. ‘It’s full of phonies and all you do is study, so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam clicks.” Holden here criticizes more on why he believes certain people are phoney. He directs his term ‘phoney’ towards the stereotypical lifestyle and the people who live that way.

These four quotes show different aspects of how and where the term ‘phoney’ could be used. Together they all expose a term usable in a large array of situations. Although the term easily used, it can be murder trying to fully understand the use of ‘phoney’ in a sentence.
If you look the word ‘phoney’ up in a dictionary you’ll find the word ‘humbug’, ‘bluff’ and ‘fake’. But in the novel it can be hard to understand Holden’s meaning with his term. In the beginning you almost get the feeling that he uses the word with the meaning ‘embarrassing’ and ‘silly’. Later in the novel it was more like an annoying sense, when he mentions ‘phoniness’.

By: Frida, Johanna, & Marco