Which is worse a cough or a runny nose

Holden has a specific idea of what makes someone phony in The Catcher in the Rye. We’ve discussed in class how he seems to be okay with lying to spare someone ill feelings, yet he despises those who show off real talents for attention or recognition. He seems to believe those who beg for attention are "more fake" than those who betray the truth.

Throughout the novel, Holden lies his way through countless uncomfortable situations. He lies about reading his history textbook in order to save his teacher even more disappointment. He lies about Ernest Morrow to his mother on the subway to convince the mom that his son is a role model rather than a huge punk. These lies are not necessarily harmful; they make the listener feel good. Holden tells the listener what they want to hear rather than the ugly truth. Holden even withholds the truth from the reader, but he is honest about doing so. He won't tell us about his childhood, and he doesn’t go into much detail about his past schools. This relative honesty makes the reader feel as if although Holden will outright lie to people in the story, he will be honest about keeping information from the reader.

Furthermore, Holden takes his relationship with the reader and lying to another level when he tells the reader just how much he is fabricating. An example of this is when his history teacher agrees with Pencey’s headmaster that life is a game. Holden, to save an argument, agrees seemingly wholeheartedly that life is, in fact, a game. He reveals to us, though, that he was lying and the fact that people think of life as a game was something that caused him a degree of anger.

So what is the difference between outright lying and being a showoff? The distinction is never explicitly made, but it can be observed that Holden’s lies are meant to “help” others, or improve their moods, as opposed to his own. A counter-argument to this could be that Holden was telling people what they wanted to hear in order for him to escape ridicule, but that does not fall in line with Holden’s observations of those who are “phony” and we don’t want to call Holden a hypocrite because he is already suffering enough. Those who are “show offs” are demanding attention or recognition. One of the first examples of someone Holden calls “phony” is the dean of one of his previous schools. He would wait outside every day to shake parents’ hands and talk about their kids and other people’s parents for up to a half an hour (that last one is strange but to each their own lol). The explanation for why the dean is phony could be that he is attempting to build a personal relationship with the parents in order the skew their opinions of the school as opposed to simply doing good work as a dean without feeling the need to be liked by each individual parent. Other examples are more clear such as the piano player with a mirror in front of his face, or the arrogant actors.

The question now is whether or not Holden’s deception is better than the phoniness he hates. How much is phoniness hurting others? And how innocent are Holden’s lies? Would you call Holden a hypocrite? Let me know what you think!

DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU WANT TO CRINGE

I am taking this opportunity to use chapter two of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as an excuse to perform a self roast on my middle school self. I will be using some of the events from chapter two as points of reference for some of my reflection. I deeply sympathize with Joyce over not including his first poem. Keep reading to find out why …..

The first half of chapter two Stephen is described as a middle school aged boy who is understandably super awkward. He has a strange fixation on The Count of Monte Cristo, sitting alone at parties looking at girls, and making cringey art. I'm not trying to rip into Stephen; everyone goes through a uncomfortable period in their life. I think it's valuable that Joyce chose to include details of an embarrassing phase of his life in his novel. It made me reflect on my own middle school years and I had a blast thinking about what a little weirdo I was. 

I thought it could be fun to do not a pastiche of Joyce but a caricature of myself from middle school. There is something overly dramatic yet relatable about Stephen sitting in the corner of a party using his psychic powers to get a girl's attention. Stephen's style throughout the whole chapter reminded me of what a "fedora guy" is all about. For those of you who aren't sticking with the memes, fedora guys are typically preteens to teenagers who think of themselves as having higher intelligence than others and that is why they can't get a girlfriend. They also think that while other boys have "swag" they have "class." They're very strange, like Stephen! I am led to believe that Joyce did not just relay true facts to us in the text, but like any novelist, wrote novel-worthy content which is most likely exaggerated to some degree. I was quite active on deviantart and Tumblr at the time, so I made it in the form of a profile bio. 

Check it out:

[I found a picture of me in middle school and I was going to post it here but I think it is better if I just had this in its place because my middle school self is... shockingly different I don't want to spook anyone. Message (don't comment) me to see]

This is me in the seventh grade! I like to color coordinate my outfits so I only wear one color on my entire body. Some days I look like a grape, and others I look like a fire engine XD 

My interests include making ~fleece unicorn hatz~ and drawing my favorite characters from "hipster" media. Like a good artist, I draw every single day in my bedazzled sketchbook. I try to stylize my pieces as much as possible so that a viewer cannot distinguish between one part of the body from another. I don't really like to show people my sketches anymore, though, because one time my really talented artist friend saw my drawings and wouldn't stop laughing. Similarly, when I showed my dad some of my pieces, two technical anatomy textbooks were soon in my possession. I think my style is quite jarring but I like that it is edgy. That makes it meaningful. 

The one piece I will show you [I WILL NOT SHOW YOU THIS DO NOT ASK] is my original character for my first comic :3c she doesn't have a name because she was born without one and she has no parents. (real reasoning) She is actually based off of me except I am a ninja owo as you can see I have rainbow wings, a hat with big floppy ears, and a scarf. These all help me to stay stealthy in the night. 

I was going to include an image of myself and my artwork but I just felt an overwhelming feeling of pure embarrassment. I think that's okay, and I'm certain Joyce felt it too when he reflected on some of the first poems he wrote. No wonder he didn't include it in his novel. Interestingly, I have no shame in showing grade school and prior artwork, and no shame in showing artwork I'm doing now. For some reason these years have been poisoned for me in terms of artistic development. Maybe Joyce felt the same way. Could it be because middle school is the time that most children begin to think more critically, or that they begin puberty, or is it something else like the art is so close to being good that it is worse than being complete garbage?

I think it would be great to get some other artists perspectives on this. I know there are lots of you out there!! How were your middle school years in terms of the art you produced relative to now? Do you feel the same way abut your work? If you don't consider yourself an artist, are there other ways you relate to Stephen from early chapter two?