Examples Of Sexism In Catcher In The Rye

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In The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden Caufield, shows signs of him being sexist towards women, he depicts it directly and indirectly. The author J.D Salinger wrote this book at the era of the women’s movement, but he decided that Holden keeps his views traditionally. J.D Salinger depicts sexism through Holden in scenes such as where he judges a girl at Ernie’s place, the Lavender room scene and seeing women as sex objects. Throughout the novel sexism doesn’t quiet seem like a major event that’s because Holden doesn’t ever think that he is being sexiest. Holden has a weird trait throughout the novel and that is judging everyone by the slight acts they do, Holden eardrops a captivating couple’s conversation and obviously criticises the conversation. The “boring” man is telling his girlfriend about a football game and all its plays, Holden says the reason why the girl has to listen is because she is an “ugly girl” and that they have it tough in this world. Holden is being directly sexiest because he is pointing at a girl and calling her ugly, he …show more content…

Holden meets three girls from Seattle visiting New York, Holden is new to approaching girls, so he tries to act cool by ordering them drinks and starts to smoke, however they aren’t interested in Holden they are looking out for celebrity’s. After this scene the girl’s reaction causes Holden to judge them and call two of the girls unattractive and that the other “okay” looking one is “dumb”. Holden shows that he is showing hidden signs of sexism, he does this because he didn’t get what he wanted. Holden then asked for a dance with the blond “okay” looking girl, Holden still might have been angry at what he didn’t get and mentioned that “girls who are dumb can actually dance”. Holden didn’t appreciate the dance, he just mentioned that dumb girls can dance, this shows signs of sexism as he criticizes the blond

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