Holden Caulfield a Boy Full of Excuses
In many ways Holden strives too hard to remain not "phony". However, he also does the opposite and doesn't try hard enough. Holden picks fights, but can never do much except antagonize the person hurting him. He never seems to actually say what he really thinks till he lets his emotions get the better of him in the midst of being beat up. For example, when he imagines Jane with Stradlater he finally lashes out and reveals his true emotions about Stradlater, but before always acts kind and nice to Stradlater despite despising his personality. When in chapter 5 when Holden gets in the one sided fight with Stradlater he calls back to his story of how he broke all the windows in the garage after finding out that Allie had died. He gives this as the reason that he wasn't able to connect properly with Stradlater's face. This seems like such an interesting detail to mention to me for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it seems like a petty, but possibly somewhat honest, excu