Despite his frequent rants against the phoniness of everyone else Holden is at times a bit of a phony himself. While he is constantly telling the reader all of his thoughts and how he's upset that more people don't speak their minds, there are a few circumstances where he hides his true thoughts.
One of the times when Holden is the most phony is when he
is talking to Ernest Morrow's mother on the train to New York from
Pencey. Holden harbors very negative feelings for Ernest and calls him "doubtless the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey, in the whole
crumby history of the school" but despite holding such disdain for
Ernest he still cannot bring himself to talk bad about a child directly
to his mother. In fact Holden goes further than just not talking bad
about Ernest but actually reassuring Mrs. Morrow that her child was a
great guy who everyone wanted to be class president. You could argue
that Holden is playing the long con just to mess with Ernest, but it
seems to me that he really just can't stand to see a sad mother.
The opening of the book also features an excellent example of Holden being quite the phony when he is talking to Mr. Spencer about his failing his classes and being kicked out of Pencey. While Mr. Spencer is lecturing Holden about the way that he needs to live his life and how he should apply himself to his education, Holden is dissecting the lecture and explaining why its all wrong, but just to the reader. Holden doesn't voice his feelings on the contents of this lecture to Mr. Spencer, but rather just says the right things to keep the man happy. Withholding true feelings to keep people happy is one of Holden's primary issues with other people yet he can't help doing it himself.
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