How Does Holden Judge Phony

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Phony Judgement
In J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye the main character, Holden, faces difficulty during social interactions, often leading in mishaps after getting kicked out from boarding school. With nobody to talk to, Holden often silently judges others for being phony. Holden has a tendency to judge other people’s actions as being phony, but he himself often acts inauthentically to impress/ receive attention from others, making himself phony. This, of course, does not help his social awkwardness, but makes him see the negative side in others and results in him distancing himself from those who are “phony.” Holden has a tendency to judge other people’s actions as being phony. J.D. Salinger demonstrates this very clearly throughout the …show more content…
Holden finds Mr. Haas’s actions as phony. Instead of being genuinely kind and shaking everyone’s hands, Mr. Haas just shakes the hands of the upper-class parents, choosing to ignore or give a fake smile to the fat, corny-looking parents. Holden can also be seen judging people when out on his date with Sally Hayes. A little while after Holden gets kicked out of Pencey, he begins to feel lonely. Holden lacks human contact and tries reaching out to people he cares about, but ultimately fails. When Holden eventually gets sick and tired of being lonely, he calls up a girl who he “used to run with” (Sally Hayes) and asks her on a date. They end up going to a show called “I Know My Love” which showcase a group called “The Lunts,” which appears to satisfy Sally greatly. At the end of the first act, Sally and Holden goes off with a bunch of other “jerks” to smoke, “You never saw so many phonies in all your life, everybody smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they were” (164). While smoking, Holden notices that most of the group acts fictitiously just to impress the others, which does not sit well with him. One
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