Holden Caulfield Conformity

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Everyone finds it difficult to fit in with society’s expectations at some point, although in the novel The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger, the main character, Holden Caulfield, finds it more difficult than most. Salinger's novel is about a boy coming of age, grieving over his dead younger brother, and learning how to accept the corrupt world around him. Through the characterization of Holden Caulfield, JD salinger develops the theme that the world we live in is corrupt and full of conformists.
The main character, Holden, sees adults as conformists and has trouble accepting that reality. Holden is walking through New York City when he decides to go watch the Rockettes at Radio City. Holden feels sickened as the “Rockettes were kicking their …show more content…

Holden and Sally were finished watching a show when Sally sees a boy she knew “from somewhere” (141). The boy and Sally walk over to one another and they say hello as if “they hadn't seen each other in twenty years”(141). Holden finds this reunion nauseating because Sally and this boy didn't actually “know” (141) one another, but instead probably met just once at a party. Since the boy went to an ivy league school this is another example of Sally Hayes wanting to conform with the elite and increase her popularity. As the conversation between Sally and the boy continued she “started talking about a lot of people they both knew” (142). Holden felt this was the “phoniest conversation [he] ever heard in [his] life” (142). This was because Holden knows Sally Hayes was name dropping for her own self promotion. Sally doesn’t care about the boy, or want a real conversation with him; instead, she was being shallow and using him to her advantage. Holden and Sally then walk over to the ice rink, where Sally was given a skirt to wear. She then would keep “walking ahead of [Holden], so that [he’d] see how cute her little ass looked” (143). All Sally wanted was attention and would show off in any given opportunity. Sally conformed with all the other girls who were also wearing those skirts. Holden finds it repulsive to see anyone conform to

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