Holden often uses the word “phony” to express his criticism in The Catcher in the Rye. What would you say he is critical of?

A lot of teenagers would probably express just as much negative criticism as Holden—if they had Holden’s ability to express himself in writing. This may be one of the reasons the novel has been so popular with young people ever since it was published in 1951.

Holden’s main problem, although he isn’t aware of it, is that he doesn’t want to grow up. He dislikes adults because he doesn’t want to become an adult. Consequently he sees everything that is wrong with adults—and there is plenty!

Here is a significant quote from one of John Cheever’s best short stories, “The Sorrows of Gin”:

The voices woke Amy, and, lying in her bed, she perceived vaguely the pitiful corruption of the adult world; how crude and frail it was, like a piece of worn burlap, patched with stupidities and mistakes, useless and ugly, and yet they never saw its worthlessness, and when you pointed it out to them, they were indignant.

Most adults learn that they have to be at least a little phony to get along in the world. The adult world would grind to a halt without the oil of insincerity to lubricate the wheels. Children see through all this easily—but adults are well aware of its existence and necessity. Even the President of the United States (whoever he may be) doesn’t always feel like greeting the Girl Scouts in the Rose Garden, but he braces himself and puts on a big smile for the cameras.

Here is another quote:

Useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one’s time, the better part of one’s strength, and in the end there is left a life grovelling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it—just as though one were in a madhouse or a prison.

                       Chekhov, “The Lady with the Dog”

Like it or not, Holden is being dragged kicking and screaming into adulthood. His negative view of the world is his resistance to growing up. Childhood is better in many respects. It is probably the only time we are really happy—at least some of us, some of the time--but it can’t last. Children can be happy because they live in a world of fantasies and illusions. They haven’t found out that they are mortal, and therefore they are immortal like the gods.