Gabrielle Jameelah F.

Urbano February 17, 2017

11 - Excellence

Fitting In

From building small civilizations, to dynasties, empires, kingdoms, and now today’s
modern society; evidently, history has shaped and changed society but one of the things society
will retain are cultural standards and social norms. J.D. Salinger has depicted a modern-day
teenager under the influence of these conventions and he revealed the adolescent mind of the
1950’s yet it still reflects the teenage mind today. Societal pressures are defined as expectations
that affect the entire community or specific parts of it, like the pressure to get married and have
children. In 1950’s societal pressure was prevalent as the effect of the Second World War, -i.e.
the existence of preparatory schools, marriage as a priority rather than education, and the
imposition of traditional gender roles on members of a family. Holden Caulfield is an example of
an identity-seeking teenager experiencing an era of social conformity. The way to analyze the
Catcher in the Rye is to enumerate different societal pressures present in the story and how
Holden behaves or thinks about a particular convention that will reveal Holden’s contradicting
character in a different light.

‘That social influences shape every person’s practices, judgements and beliefs is a truism
to which anyone will readily assent.’ (Asch, S. (1955). Opinions and Social Pressure. San
Francisco, California: W.H. Freeman and Company) At the beginning of Salinger’s novel,
Holden rejected the convention of introducing himself and just began to tell his story:

“Besides, I’m not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything.
I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last
Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it
easy.” (1)

Holden states his dislike of an insincere introduction and implicitly states that he is
narrating his story, a year later, in a psychiatric hospital in which individuals of the society are
sent to ‘induce conformity or restrain dissension’ (Hurd, M. (2014) Does Psychiatry Promote
Conformity? Retrieved from: [Link] Another form of rejecting
conformity is when he greeted the navy who was with Lillian Simmons, “Glad to’ve met you” to

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somebody I’m not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive you have to stay that stuff though.”
(98). Holden acknowledges the existence of these social norms and cultural standards and even
acknowledging that in order to ‘stay alive’ you have to follow on these etiquettes. Depicting that
society demands conformity, if not, the next option is alienation and isolation.

Holden likes to refer to everyone as a ‘phony’. ‘Phony’ is a title given by Holden to

people whom he considers as pretentious, cynical, superficial, and hypocrites. Yet some of those
whom he claims as ‘phony’ show nothing of the sort but his own personal biases and prejudices,
in fact these people fit into society. With closer inspection, some of the novel’s phrasing
indicates a bit jealousy as he describes what makes the other characters phony as some of
Holden’s beliefs seem to contradict. He described Stradlater as a ‘secret slob’ yet he praises
Stradlater’s physical appearance. He also criticizes Stradlater’s ability to have casual sex with
girls and later on confesses that he wishes to adapt his roommate’s carefree lifestyle. Another
example is when he was talking to Carl Luce about sex and knowing who were ‘flits’; the same
topic that he kept on praising Luce when he was describing him at first. Yet in his date with Sally
Hayes, he rants that he cannot stand conversing about the ‘usual topics’ when he was at Prency
Prep, including sex and girls:

“It’s full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be
smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to
keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you talk
about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty
little goddam cliques.” (145)

In these instances, Holden descriptively explains the conventions of male adolescents in

the 1950’s. If compared today nothing much has changed in the macho society, women, sex,
alcohol, sports and cars are the expected topics of interests from young men even today. Holden
explicitly expresses his disdain about societal pressures that acts as a catalyst for one to change,
as he talks in detail to Phoebe about the phoniness of Prency Prep and all those who are a part of
the institution and how his older brother, D.B. is ‘prostituting’ by writing scripts instead of
novels in order to sell more. Though Holden’s parents are not that frequently mentioned he feels
pressured as he is enrolled in an exclusive preparatory school. Holden hates someone who tries

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so hard to change to fit in society and claims to hate cliques and conventions yet whenever he
feels forlorn, he is pressured to try his best to meet these standards, becoming a phony himself, to
acquire company, like his encounters with the tourists, Lillian, Sally and Carl, but eventually he
gets bored or ruins or ends the conversation on a bad note and ends up being depressed and alone
again.

A significant symbolism in the novel is Holden’s red hunting hat. For him it serves as an
expression of being genuine as he differentiates himself from others through this hat, expressing
his individuality and uniqueness. Coincidently, same as the color of Phoebe’s and Allie’s hair
which he considers both of his siblings are genuine which could be an indirect way of saying that
he, like his siblings, is not a phony. Though in the novel he is very conscious about his hat the
way he wears and fiddles with it and constantly changing up the style and only puts it on when
he feels like it but at some point of the novel he said: “I took my old hunting hat…and put it on. I
knew I wouldn’t meet anybody that knew me, and it was pretty damp out.” (135) Holden wasn’t
pertaining to just the weather but people who knew and would think or judge how peculiar it is
for him to be wearing that hat; as sometimes he flaunts it to some people emphasizing how
unique it is. His hat may be a symbol of individuality but it also represents some of his
insecurities like being alienated from society as he knows that he does not want to succumb to
the pressures imposed to him. Just like his hatred for museums where he feels that everything is
the same and only he is different associates with his situation in his society.

Holden is an unstable character as sometimes he would voice out something he clearly

despises yet without even knowing that he, himself, is a ‘phony’ due to his lies, deceit, constant
judgement of others, but most of all his refusal to grow up and desire stay as child can be seen in
the part where he cries as he watches Phoebe wearing his hat and carousel which also signifies
childhood left an impact to him as he knows that he cannot escape the pressures of adulthood.
His dream job of being a catcher in the rye actually means that he wants to save the children
from becoming a phony adult where the rye field is childhood and the cliff where Holden would
‘catch’ the children is adulthood. In Chapter 22, Holden enumerates the instances where adults
become phonies; his recurring desire of wanting to run off somewhere and live in the mountains

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or any distant place where D.B. can only write novels signifies Holden’s desire to escape from
societal pressures imposed on adults which he is now turning into. His insecurities and the
conformities required by society pressure him to act in the series of events that happened.