Just as Holden sets up a challenger anywhere between design and you will compound, he together with sets up an opposition anywhere between overall performance and you may credibility. Getting Holden, abilities are directly related to impression out of appearance and phoniness , and no you to definitely epitomizes the latest artificiality away from overall performance much better than elite stars. Holden dislikes actors mainly because they imagine are someone else. But the guy together with requires trouble with actors since their profits are for how better it show off its ability. Holden generally seems to accept that the greater it show off the ability, the fresh phonier they score. Pretending for this reason possess an excellent corrupting fuel. Holden seems to believe most people are actors out-of kinds, exaggerating who they are to help you please an imaginary listeners. For example overstatement leads to artificiality and the failure to-be good “real” individual. In case things are a performance and hence inauthentic, upcoming so what does credibility indeed look like? Regardless if Holden privileges a sense of authenticity, the guy never ever explicitly describes they, and that indicates they are chasing after something will most likely not in reality occur.
Possibly believe it or not, given their criticism away from performance, Holden do not exempt themselves on fees away from inauthenticity. This really is evident as soon as Section cuatro, when he gleefully proclaims their need certainly to work aside getting notice: “All We need’s an audience. I am an exhibitionist.” Whether tap dancing for Stradlater about dorm restroom, trying out this new changes pride of Rudolph Schmidt on the train to Ny, otherwise trying to get involved in it chill for the urban area taverns, Holden performs and exaggerates constantly. The guy even admits so you’re able to exaggerating his own immaturity. When he notes during the Chapter dos, “I operate slightly more youthful to have my personal age either. I found myself sixteen upcoming, and you can I am seventeen now, and some minutes I act like I’m throughout the thirteen.” Holden renders an identical performance while in the their come across with Carl Luce, exactly who statements toward Holden’s chronic immaturity and you will a couple of times asks him, “When would you mature?” Regarding Catcher on the Rye , upcoming, Holden is an actor looking for an effective sympathetic listeners.
Stradlater and you may Ackley sound like appallingly unsympathetic letters, however, this is certainly totally caused by new tone in which Holden identifies her or him. For example, Holden ways his sense you to definitely Ackley acts when you look at the annoying suggests while the they are vulnerable and you will unpopular, but alternatively of trying to visualize just what Ackley wishes otherwise as to why the guy really does one thing, the guy centers around Ackley’s skin-literally, his epidermis. Because of the discussing during the second detail Ackley’s nail lowering and pimple squeeze, Holden renders him have a look unpleasant and you may subhuman.
Performance
As opposed to recognizing that adulthood frightens and mystifies your, Holden invents a dream one adulthood is actually an environment of superficiality and hypocrisy (“phoniness”), while you are youngsters is actually a world of innocence, interest, and you can trustworthiness. Nothing shows his picture of those two globes a lot better than his fantasy concerning the catcher about rye: the guy imagines young people just like the a beautiful field of rye where pupils romp and you may enjoy; adulthood, for the kids associated with the business, is equivalent to passing-a fatal slip across the edge of a cliff. His composed understandings regarding youthfulness and you will adulthood succeed Holden to slice themselves off from the nation by covering himself with a defensive armour out of cynicism. But just like the publication progresses, Holden’s feel, such as his encounters having Mr. Antolini and you may Phoebe, show the newest shallowness of his conceptions.
Just as they means the pain sensation away from his past, Holden’s inaction plus makes reference to their concern with the future. Appear to in the publication Holden makes reference to the field of adults because the being laden with legislation and exhibitions that make anybody with the phonies. But his lingering complaint of people hides a deeper opposition so you’re able to growing up. Though he frequently thinks and you 
may talks about intercourse, each one of Holden’s experiences having women in the book was disastrous. Maybe extremely telling is the world toward prostitute Warm. Holden never provide himself having intercourse with her, one of several failed sexual knowledge he or she is experienced. During the a slim sense, it episode shows Holden’s hang-ups in the sex. Way more basically, what’s more, it reveals how Holden’s failure to do something hyperlinks in order to his greater effectiveness increasing up. Their refusal to enhance up endangers their upcoming capability to end up being much more long lasting or take action in spite of the planet’s of numerous flaws.
Summary: Part 4
However, even in the event Holden expends really times in search of phoniness in other people, the guy never really notices his own phoniness. His deceptions are pointless and horrible and he notes you to he is a perfectionist liar. Such, into train to help you Nyc, Holden perpetrates a mean-competitive and you will needless prank for the Mrs. Morrow. He’d such as for example me to accept that he’s an excellent paragon away from virtue into the a whole lot of phoniness, however, that simply isn’t the case. In the event however wish to believe that the nation is a simple put, and therefore advantage and you will innocence other individuals similarly of one’s wall whenever you are superficiality and you may phoniness others on the other side, Holden was his or her own counterevidence. The country is not as straightforward as he’d including-and requirements-that it is; actually the guy cannot adhere to a similar black-and-light conditions with which he judges someone else.