Catcher in the Rye

In the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the protagonist, Holden Caulfield thinks the world is a terrible and depressing place. He recognizes every adult as phonies or bastards as long as they have been touched the adult world. He loves children much more but he saw the adults “tarnishing” the world the children where it should belong to those. All of this makes him alienates his own self. It eventually grows and that drives him cynical and unhappy about this world.

During the football game on Saturday, Holden didn’t sit with all other student in his school rooting their team. Instead, he sit by himself on the top of Thomsen Hill, as he says “You could see the whole field from there, and you could see the two teams bashing each other all over the place. You could hear them all yelling” (5). He thinks the reason why he is sitting and watching the game on a hill is because he just got back from New York with the fencing team, but still, it’s just an excuse that he alienates himself from all his classmates rather than integrating himself into the group. He feels that his classmates are fake and their words are full of deceit. He is sick of his classmates and he couldn’t find a friend in the school. He is just being unhappy because he wants to have some friendship like a normal student, but he just couldn’t find anyone not being a phony.