Catcher In The Rye Women Analysis

The Treatment of Women by Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye

Women, the existence and treatment of, have been a controversial conversation for decades. Before the feminist movement, women were housewives. They were mothers, they cooked for their family, and cleaned the home. These stereotypes have had a negative impact on the way men view women. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s opinions on women are shown through his interactions with the female gender. As Holden Caulfield wanders New York in The Catcher and the Rye, his interactions with women reveal his struggles with the female gender. Holden Caulfield has conflicting views on woman, as he attempts to understand and interact with them. Throughout The Catcher in the …show more content…
Women who do not fit his standards (and narrow standards they are, for a boy so in love with the idea of nonconformity), are automatically unintelligent. “Then I tried to get them in a little intelligent conversation, but it was practically impossible” (Salinger 73). Holden Caulfield sat himself down at a table with three women, and became frustrated when they were uninterested in his chosen topics of conversation. He calls them “ignorant” (Salinger 73), and states that “You could hardly tell which was the stupidest of the three of them” (Salinger 73). Holden Caulfield consistently mistakes the lack of desire women feel to talk to him as stupidity, even when they can make conversation on topics he is interested in. It is never enough, or not the right type of intelligence. “She knew quite a lot about the theater and plays and literature... it takes you quite a while to find out whether they’re really stupid or not” (Salinger 105). Despite having directly stated that Sally Hayes is knowledgeable, he later decides that it is not good enough for her to truly be intelligent. It is odd, when considering that these areas are where much of Holden Caulfield’s expertise lie as well. Even in matters of opinion, Holden Caulfield places his own ideas as superior to those of women, even those he seems to respect. “Every time you mention a guy who’s strictly a bastard -very mean or very conceited... She’ll tell you he has an inferiority complex” (Salinger 135). He immediately shows disdain towards the idea of excusing someone as having an inferiority complex, yet he continues on to say “His name was Bob Robinson and he really had an inferiority complex... The reason she thought he was conceited was because he happened to mention to her that he was the captain of the debating team” (Salinger 136). Holden Caulfield assumed a boy was conceited because he would