Chapters 18 thru 20- Relationships
I feel increasingly bad for Holden because he can never keep a relationship straight with anyone. The only people he has (or had) decent relationships with are Jane, Phoebe and Allie. These are also the only people Holden really praises as having good character and above all, they weren't phonies. Everyone whom Holden cannot relate to is automatically a phony to him. I think that if Holden had an outside view of himself, he would probably say that he was too conceded and serious. Holden probably comes off as full of himself because he basically thinks he's better than everyone else. He can't overlook the bad things about people but he seems to wish he could. He talks about marriage and having friends wistfully because he's never been able to stand a person long enough to become their friend. He even gets tired of intellects. I think Corso's poem about marriage is a good insight to how Holden feels about marriage. Corso kinda thinks people are phonies too. Maybe Holden wishes he was more normal, but tells himself that everyone else is a phony to make himself feel better about not being so normal. He has really bad relationships with everyone because he can't let things go and he has such drastic mood swings and hyper-sensitivity.
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I think that Holden would either think he was a straight-out phony, or think, "wow, that's a person I could really relate to!" , most likely the first option however...
ReplyDeleteI agree, I think part of the reason Holden lables everyone else, it to bost his own lacking self confidence!
Yeah, Holden is quite the hypocrite. He hates the people around him for their fakeness, but acts fake himself. If he was outside looking in he would undeniably call himself a phony.
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