Holden Caulfield's Biggest Insecurity Came From a Bunch of Phonies
Holden Caulfield's Biggest Insecurity Came From a Bunch of Phonies
Holden Caulfield is a morally grey narrator to say the least, but when it comes to the topic of sex and consent we often find him solidly on the side of righteousness. The trouble isn’t in his actions but his own view of those actions. He thinks he is broken or in some way “wrong” for not pushing girls past their level of comfortability. Of course, this view stems from the rash and entitled attitudes of the boys around him, but I’m curious how much these views are reflected in society as a whole at the time “The Catcher in the Rye” is set in.
We know that over time premarital sex has increased and the age that people tend to lose their virginities has decreased, but was it really on such an extreme level that Holden would actually be isolated by his lack of sexual experience? In all reality, no. Even in the 1950s it was most common for adolescents to lose their virginity around the age of 17+; however, it is not unreasonable to assume that young men would speak of their experience with a great deal of hyperbole. This shows that just as Holden resents phonies, many of his self-image issues likely came from half-truths and misrepresentations. This is an issue that remains very prevalent today, and is the exact reason it is so important for social media, and all media for that matter, to represent a more genuine version of the experience of coming of age.
Rusterholz, Caroline. “The Context: Youth, Sex, and Public Anxieties in the 1950s–1960s.” Responsible Pleasure: The Brook Advisory Centres and Youth Sexuality in Postwar Britain, Oxford University Press, May 2024, Oxford Scholarship Online, https://academic.oup.com/book/56382/chapter/448314950
I can attest from personal experience, coming of age as a male in the 1980s, a good deal after Salinger and Holden's era, that it is indeed true that young men "would speak of their experience with a great deal of hyperbole." Holden even alludes to this tendency when he jokes about Ackley's lies about the girl from Canada he met at summer camp. And we see the inclination to seem "normal" when hanging out with a guy like Stradlater, as Holden "double dates" with him, constantly berating himself for not being as predatory as Stradlater is. One of the most striking moments in this narrative, when I first read it, was when Holden straight-out admits that he's a virgin at seventeen--this was not something that ANY guy would have been willing to say out loud, however true it may have been. There was an expectation to always FRONT like you have much more experience than you actually do, and this often meant nodding along when guys were exchanging hyperbolic tales of sexual conquest. There was an unspoken suggestion that something might be "wrong" with you if you were not sexually active, so it really goes a long way, in terms of establishing this dynamic of trust and intimacy between the reader and narrator, when Holden is so willing to admit his own inexperience and confusion when it comes to sex, while also depicting himself acting in a very un-Stradlater-like way with Sunny, wanting to TALK to her, for Chrissake.
ReplyDeleteI do think the generation Holden grows up in has a lot to do with his insecurity, especially when it comes to sex and masculinity. At the time, there was a strong expectation for boys to be dominant and experienced. Because Holden does not feel comfortable forcing girls into anything, he starts to think something is wrong with him. His morals are not the problem, but he believes they make him weaker than the other boys around him. Even though it may have been more common to talk about sex at younger ages, a lot of what boys said was probably exaggerated. Holden compares himself to these inflated stories and feels behind, even if he really is not. I also read a post about him being born in the wrong generation, and your blog reminded me of that. He seems to have a more modern mindset and more awareness about consent, but he is stuck in a culture that values something different.
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