How Is Holden Caulfield Reliable

The great American novel The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger, accurately portrays American society through the eyes of its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Upon being published, this novel was one of the most controversial of the time, causing adults to rise up in outrage over the ideas the novel represents. What these people were not willing to accept was that this novel in fact represented American society and its ideas. Some may say that the view of America that Holden gives in the novel is inaccurate and over dramatized because of his pessimistic attitude and tendencies to lie, making him a faulty narrator. However, Holden’s narration is close enough to my understanding of the world that saying he is an unreliable narrator is a bad argument. In the novel Holden gives an accurate view of American society through his portrayal of inauthenticity, realistic characters, and the idea of the American dream -- running away from home. …show more content…
Holden brings up the topic of authenticity many times in the novel regarding character and even words. For instance when he says “Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's a phony. I could puke every time I hear it” (9). He despises anything or anyone who is phony and fake. Even though Holden lies and deceives other characters and the reader throughout the book, he is still authentic to himself in the way that he accepts his lying and deception as a part of himself. In America, from what I have witnessed in the most powerful politicians and businessmen in the world, they all share the attribute of adaptation or as Holden would put it, being phony. Holden refuses to accept adapting and as a result has failed out of three prep schools. Salinger is trying to make the point that if you can’t adapt to society and its rules then you will never