Catcher In The Rye: Holden And His "Phony" Family

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and generalizes both his father and mother
frequently throughout his chronicle. One example is: "…my parents would
have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything personal about them.
They're quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father.
They're nice and all – I'm not saying that – but they're also touchy as
hell" (Salinger 1). Holden's father is a lawyer and therefore he considers
him "phony" because he views his father's occupation unswervingly as a
parallel of his father's personality. For example, when Holden is talking
to Phoebe about what he wants to be when he grows up, he cannot answer her
question and proceeds to give her his opinion about their father's
occupation..

'Lawyers are all right, I guess – but it doesn't appeal to me,' I
said. 'I mean they're all right if they go around saving innocent
guys' lives all the time, and like that, but you don't do that kind of
stuff if you're a lawyer. All you do is make a lot of dough and ...

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shown when D.B. takes Holden
and Phoebe to see Hamlet: "He treated us to lunch first, and then he took
us. He'd already seen it, and the way he talked about it at lunch, I was
anxious as hell to see it, too" (Salinger 117). Holden feels that all
movies and shows are false, absurdly exaggerated portrayals of reality and
subsequently because his brother takes part in these perversions of realism,
he is a "phony." He's in Hollywood. That's isn't too far from this
crumby place, and he comes over and visits me practically every week end…
He's got a lot of dough, now. He didn't use to. He used to be just a
regular writer, when he was home (Salinger 1). Now he's out in Hollywood,
D.B., ...

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