Anthology

Josh Vander Leest Hour 2 English 11 6 November, 2009 Title Holden Caulfield is a complex character because The main character of Holden Caulfield views the world as a place where valuable human qualities such as love and kindness have been overridden by the middle class version of “success”, which is based chiefly on money and power. Holden Caulfield lives towards the fact that basic human kindness is far more vital to a happy existence than material wealth. Salinger continuously portrays Holden as a doubtful character, particularly in regards to issues surrounding wealth and corruption, as can be seen in the following passage which describes the character’s opinion of lawyers like his father: All you do is make a lot of dough and play golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot-shot. How would you know you weren’t being a phony' The trouble is, you wouldn’t” (p. 172). He doesn't really know what to say to people, but he does have a large vocabulary. Even though he has strong English skills, he lacks communicational skills. At Pencey, he had only passed his English class, while failing the rest. He is against phonies, and gets extremely angry as well as sarcastic. he cusses a lot, and he sometimes doesn't care when people are talking to him because he won't be paying attention to them and his head will be in the clouds. He hates many things because they just aren't they way he wants them to be. He has had many bad experiences with school and he has been kicked out of several of them. He usually calls his teachers and schoolmates "phonies." He doesn't generally like teachers, but there are only a few that he does. He likes horsing around and having a good time, but not everyone else he encounters does, so Holden is also very obnoxious at times.