Catcher In The Rye :: essays research papers

The book Catcher in the Rye tells of Holden Caulfield's insight about life and the world around him. Holden shares many of his opinions about people and leads the reader on a 5 day visit 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 myself, I do 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 believed. 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 he [Stradlater] fixed himself up to look good was because he was madly in love with himself." (pg. 27) Holden had an inferiority complex. He was afraid of not having any special talents or abilities and used other methods to make him out to be a rough tough boy. "Boy, I sat at that goddam bar till around one o'clock or so, getting drunk as a bastard. I could hardly see straight." (pg. 150) Holden tried all he could to fit in. He drank, cursed and criticized life in general to make it seem he was very knowing of these 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 gain acceptance by them. I smoked a cigar once with two friends of mine because they kept going on and on about how great cigars were, but that was only once. Holden and I both place people on levels other than our own for amount of knowledge and likeness to ourselves. 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 naturally and follow other people's manners and grace. 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 so fake and unnatural every time they would do so. "At the end of the first act we went out with all the other jerks for a cigarette. What a deal that