Catcher in the Rye – closed analysis
With close reference to pages 183-186 analyse Salinger’s use of language and structure, exploring Holden’s contradictory view of the word
Holden is an adolescent struggling against the unfair, sometimes cruel nature of the adult world and sees the hypocrisy and attempts to flee it. Salinger uses Holden’s character to express his views on the 1950’s America and gives us as readers an insight through the first person narrative to the average American boy’s life.
Throughout the novel we are able to identify that Holden holds many critical views on the society around him which results in his inability to connect to it. He expresses this insecurity by criticising the flaws that he finds, for example, the unfair class system.
At the beginning of the extract when Holden is talking to the two children, he tells them “you should” learn about how Egyptians bury the dead, yet this is a clear contradiction to what Holden himself is like as he doesn’t care about his own education, yet is advising others. Here I believe that Holden is being what he calls ‘phony’ and in this circumstance phony refers to the false pretences and the way he acts like someone he isn’t.
However, though Holden uses the word ‘phony’ repeatedly throughout the novel, it doesn’t always mean the same thing. It’s what he uses for describing the superficiality, hypocrisy, pretension, and shallowness that he encounters in the world around him and it stands as an emblem of everything that’s wrong in the world around him and provides an excuse for him to withdraw into his cynical isolation.
In the novel, Holden also likes to make out that he doesn’t need anyone, this is because he’s so cut off from society and the people around him and he pushes everyone away, yet this is quite contradictory to how he acted when one of the little boys was holding on to him as he says “...practically was holding onto my sleeve”. This can be because he’s seeing himself and his brother Allie, in the two little boys now, which can be why he talked to them in the first place.
Further along in the extract, Holden says “I was the only one in the tomb then. I sort of liked it, in a way.” And looking at the structure of these sentences we can see that they are short and concise, yet we see that following one slightly positive comment, Holden has to have a little rant and bring some negativity into his speech and feels the need to criticise something.
After describing the museum and his surroundings as “nice and peaceful” which is quite strange in itself as he doesn’t usually feel like he fits in anywhere which can be due to his inability to adapt to the thought of change, he says how the “whole trouble” is that “you can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful because there isn’t any.” This is also a contradiction to what he first says, and I think that these contradictions can give us an insight to Holden’s mental state as he is unable to stick to one thing and also represents how pessimistic he is. He finds it not peaceful due to“fuck you” graffiti on the wall. He believes it to be immoral and wants to protect the minds of young children which indicate to the reader that Holden perceives the world as an evil and corrupt place where there is a lack of peace, and a barrier between adult and adolescent sensibilities being lost. Holden thinks that the world and society is immoral and dishonest which he constantly expresses throughout the course of the novel.
The graffiti which was in “red crayon” is described by Holden and this can immediately express danger or other threats which in this case is the loss of innocence that can occur due to the profanities he has stumbled across in the museum and this gets him so agitated that he even mentions there being a “fuck you” written on his tombstone, and the way that he guarantees it shows his pessimistic behaviour and mentality and links to his fear of death and preoccupation with ending up buried and forgotten.
In the novel, it’s evident that Holden despises the use of profanities as he was irritated when he saw the “fuck you” graffiti, which can be due to his vision of himself being “the catcher in the rye” preserving the innocence of the younger generations, yet he himself uses vulgar language, whether as a profanity or simply as his vernacular, we often see him using words such as “goddam”, “sonavubitch” and “bastard”.
Also, Holden likes to perceive himself as “the catcher in the rye”, yet when his sister Phoebe asks to come along with him, he harshly responds to her saying “im going alone so Shutup”. The tone is cold and harsh which can on the surface indicate his indifference to everyone and everything but upon looking closely, it is evident that his responses are hollow, empty and meaningless, and occur so quickly without thought, which shows how much Holden is used to blocking people out and pushing them away which contradicts what he says about being lonely and Although he encounters opportunities for both physical and emotional intimacy, he bungles them all, wrapping himself in a psychological armour of critical cynicism and bitterness. Even so, Holden desperately continues searching for new relationships, always undoing himself only at the last moment.
Holden also contradicts himself, as at one point he says that it may be the last time he sees “any of my relatives” yet then goes on to say how he’d let people visit as long as they weren’t phony and that would be a “rule”.
He shows contradictions throughout the entire novel and doesn’t allow any mental stability to be shown.

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[ 1 ]. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/catcher/themes.html
[ 2 ]. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/catcher/themes.html