The Catcher In The Rye: Holden

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goes to New York to 'take a vacation' before returning to his parents'
inevitable wrath.

Told as a monologue, the book describes Holden's thoughts and activities over
these few days, during which he describes a developing nervous breakdown,
symptomised by his bouts of unexplained depression, impulsive spending and
generally odd, erratic behaviour, prior to his eventual nervous collapse.

However, during his psychological battle, life continues on around Holden as it
always had, with the majority of people ignoring the 'madman stuff' that is
happening to him - until it begins to encroach on their well defined social
codes. Progressively through the novel we are challenged to think about
society's attitude to the human condition - does society have an 'ostrich in the
sand' mentality, a deliberate ignorance of the emptiness that can characterize
human existence? And if so, when Caulfield begins to probe and investigate his
own sense of emptiness and isolation, before finally ...

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put on polishing theatricality. He says he has never seen so much 'phony'
things like he saw in the theater. Out of these examples and others we see that
for Holden it is very important to be 'real', honest and not 'phony', thus the
criticism toward the 'phony' things in society is the most significant aspect of
his personality

Another important aspect in Holden's personality is that rules to him were meant
to serve the strong, whereas he belongs to the weak, thus he ignores them
completely. His attitude toward rules can be demonstrated by these examples :
Ring Lardner's tells Holden a story in which a married policeman fell in love
with a girl who drove faster than the speed ...

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