Catcher In The Rye :: essays research papers

The book Catcher in the Rye tells of Holden Caulfields insight aboutlife and the world around him. Holden shares umpteen of his opinions aboutpeople 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 canrelate to this because although I do not view people inferior to myself, Ido judge others unequally. Holden and I both have uniform judgements ofpeople from the way they act and behave. We also share feelings aboutmotivation as well as lack of it. After reading this book, I came to the shutdown that Holden and I are much more similar than I initiallybelieved.Holden portrayed others to be inferior to his own kind all throughoutthe book. He made several references as to how people arent as perfect ashe was. "The reason he Stradlater fixed himself up to look good wasbecause he was madly in love with himself." (pg. 27) Holden had aninferiority complex. He was afraid of not having any special talents ora bilities and used other methods to make him out to be a rough tough boy."Boy, I sat at that goddam bar till around one oclock or so, getting drunkas a bastard. I could hardly see straight." (pg. 150) Holden tried all hecould to fit in. He drank, cursed and criticized life in general to make it have the appearance _or_ semblance he was very knowing of these habits. I myself have found me doing thisat times, also. I, at times, feel the need to fit in to a group and dothings similar to what others do in order to gain acceptance by them. Ismoked a cigar once with two friends of mine because they kept press release on andon about how great cigars were, but that was only once. Holden and I bothplace people on levels other than our own for amount of familiarity andlikeness to ourselves.Holden used the term phonies to describe more than a few people inthis book. He used the term to be what a somebody is if they dont actnaturally and follow other peoples manners and grace. Holden d idnt likephonies, he thought of them as if they were trying to show off. He didntlike it when they showed off because it seemed so fake and unnatural everytime they would do so."At the end of the first act we went out with allthe other jerks for a cigarette. What a spile that