Re: Focus Question #1 What does phony really mean? (fwd)
Andrea Jayne Cody (ajcody@midway.uchicago.edu)
Fri, 30 Oct 1998 00:54:43 -0500
Okay, I've been here a couple days keeping my mouth shut, but I've got
to get out some thoughts. Real quick first, I'm Andrea, a first year
student at the University of Chicago. I love Salinger for his insights
into human interaction represented through his situationals like in
Franny, and Raise High, and some scenes from Catcher, and mostly for his
common theme that I'm about to address through Catcher, but you'll find
in all his works. I think he's a genious on levels that my little
pea-brain will never understand, but for the ones that I do, his insight
tears me apart inside. I strive to be as intimate and passionate writer
as Salinger, and I strive to understand him and his works more than I do
now. I've unfortunately never read Salinger in school, so I haven't
ever written about him and I'm not sure how clear my thoughts will come
across. Okay, here we go.
This phoniness you addressed is everywhere. You described Salinger's
perception of phoniness perfectly. But when you said:
Maybe it wasn't technically the right thing
> to do by leaving the school but who is to say what it is technically
> right? Maybe some would shun Holden for his decision to leave school but
> others would secretly applaud him. Thoreau once took a month off and went
> out into nature to learn more about life.
I got choked up. In this idea of reclusion is Salinger's point. What
do you think the title of this book means? (Please take necessary time
to com eup with your own idea, if you don't already have one, before
reading on.) I'm not sure if this point hasn't already been discussed
here, but understanding the title is one of the most important parts of
Salinger's message to his target audience, the intellectually frustrated
individual. He introduces the title as a sort of beer chant, talking
about a man that catches kids from falling of the cliff (cute note about
the school crossing guard!). The whole novel Holden is depressed and
complaining about everyone else being phony (ironically all of his
spoken lines sound phony, a young intellectual's affliction). He heads
toward reclusion, and is still depressed. Then there's Phoebe, the
light of his life, whom he truly cares for her. She comes to him with
her bags packed, ready to leave with him, and he is crushed. When he
convinces her to stay, he says, the only time in the whole novel: "I
felt so damn heppy all of the sudden . . ." because he saved her from
falling off the cliff. Holden is the catcher in the rye! And for me in
my life, Salinger is as well. Salinger left the world out of contempt
for the "phonies" that surround us (I'm inferring this from the little I
know of him, don't hold it against me). You say that maybe he made the
right decision in leaving life like Thoreau; I hope you can see this
point, too. Thoreau left for self-discovery and to learn and practice
Transcendentalism, not out of spite for the rest of the world. Salinger
deals in Catcher with the feeling of being intellectually superior and
disgusted with the average, here, the phony. Salinger begs the
frustrated to not jump off the cliff and be depressed like him and
Holden, and he derives happiness from saving us. If you apply this same
idea to Franny and Zooey, Seymour, Perfect Day, etc. it always fits.
Salinger is on the edge, spitting out stories occasionally begging us to
not be like him, not give in and leave. If any of you do get frustrated
at talking to idiots or people who lack passion for life or learning,
listen to Salinger's message.
I'm truly sorry for the unorganized lecture. I promise I won't do it
often, I just couldn't hold this one back. Thanks for reading and
writing such interesting things.
-Andrea
me wrote:
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 13:58:14 -0600 (MDT)
> From: me <ho3318ni@meteor.uscolo.edu>
> To: eng493wh@meteor.uscolo.edu
> Subject: Focus Question #1 What does phony really mean?
>
> Hey All! Will wanted me to forward my ideas on phoniness and the Catcher
> In the Rye so here it is:)
>
> What does the word "phony" really mean? I think to most of us as well as
> Holden "phony" means in our minds to be unatural or superficial. Holden
> believes many of the people he encounters as being "phony". It isn't just
> merely saying the person is superficial or anything like that it is more in
> depth than this. Holden believes people who live their lives for other
> people are phony. He believes those who go to a prep school to impress
> parents or college are "phony". He realizes he must flunk out and leave
> Pencey to perhaps save himself from becoming "phony". He meets a girl
> named Bernice whom he finds to be of the unintelligent race. Although he
> seems obsessed with her phoniness he can't overlook the fact that she is a
> terrific dancer. The girl has an obsession with meeting movie stars(which
> holden despises) but at the same time he is able to see a positive
> characterisitc in this girl who appears to be "phony". Phoebe is one
> individual Holden finds to be genuine(in addition to his brother Allie).
> Even his brother D.B. he proclaims "prostitutes"his work to Hollywood.
> Phoniness is people who can't find the time to be themselves. Holden
> himself at times seems to be representing someone other than himself.
> Holden sees most of the world as being "phony". He sees most people doing
> things to impress other people and not for themselves. He realized he
> didn't fit in with all the "morons" at Pencey and that by staying there
> and continuing what he believed to be a "false education" that he himself
> would become a phony person. Holden believes also that education is not
> entirely learned through books and classroom settings. Each day we live
> life we learn something new. Maybe it wasn't technically the right thing
> to do by leaving the school but who is to say what it is technically
> right? Maybe some would shun Holden for his decision to leave school but
> others would secretly applaud him. Thoreau once took a month off and went
> out into nature to learn more about life. Sure he wasn't learning about
> iambic pentameter in poetry but he was learning about poetry in a way that
> relates to his life. It is obvious that after five schools Holden was
> just not cut out for that kind of life that he was there for another
> purpose and that he felt his parents just couldn't get it in their heads
> that Holden was not the person they tried to portray to society but that
> he was his own being. Many people say in college it is important not only
> to gain scholarly knowledge but also knowledge in the experience of life.
> Holden in many ways seemed to be in the mind frame of someone older than
> he. You wouldn't expect a sixteen year old to have read some of the books
> he had read. So what if he didn't read the textbook about Egyptians, the
> point is he did read something and he read something that he could relate
> to. Holden almost seems to be ahead of the rest of the world...maybe that
> is why they think he might be "crazy" because they just don't understand
> yet. This alternative way of gaining knowledge shows genuinity and can
> take us away from the "phonies" of our world. We don't have to be like
> anyone else in this world for we are the ones who must live our lives. I
> think we can learn a great deal from Holden in knowing that we are what we
> live so we might as well make the best of it.