the catcher in the rye
The Catcher In the Rye The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, is a novel that contains many different themes. The main themes are growing up, maturing, and phoniness. The main character Holden is an idealist, he always thinks of things as they should be not as they are. He also thinks of the entire world as being "phoney,“ and he describes the superficiality and shallowness that he encounters in the world around him. Holden wants everything to be easily understandable and easily fixable. He is frightened because he is guilty of the sins he criticizes in others, and because he can't understand everything around him. Through his lying and deception, Holden proves that he is just as guilty of phoniness as the people he criticizes. Holden refuses to realize this fear and he only expresses it a few times, for example, when he talks about sex and admits that "sex is something I just don't understand.” Instead of realizing that adulthood scares and confuses him, Holden invents a fantasy that adulthood is a world of superficiality, while childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity, and honesty.