Blog #3: Is Holden A Phoney?

According to Holden, being a phoney means saying things or doing things infront of people that you usually wouldn't ever do or saying things that only people want to hear, not what you actually believe. I believe another word for phoney would be a lier. If you say things you don't actually believe then doesn't that make you a lier? If your doing something that you usually wouldn't do infront of an audience, I believe another word for that is a fake, which is pretty much the same thing. Holden does this a lot when meeting new people. He begins to lie to people to either make the feel sorry for him ( Mrs.Morrow when he told her he had surgery) or when he knows it's what they want to hear( The nuns when he says his best subject is english). The thing is you don't even need an audience to be a phoney. When your alone, you can think of things you may want to do or say but never actually do it (When Holden got hit in his hotel room and pretended he got shot and was going to go down and shoot the guy). Holden also believes that actors are phoneys because they act in movies like the really wouldn't in real life, but thats the point of acting and being good at it. If they can act like a completely different person I believe that person is a really good actor. They may be phoneys because of what they do but it's their job. Holden isn't an actor but he does act a lot in this book, which makes him an even bigger phoney then the real actors. So with all of this said, Holden does accuse many people of being phoneys and he shouldn't because I don't think he realizes he's one too.