Appearance and Personality
One of Holden's most striking and quintessential qualities is his powerful revulsion for "phony" qualities, a catch-all term for all the perceived hypocrisy that irritates Holden. It is this cynicism that consequently causes him to distance himself from other people. Despite Holden's strong disdain for phony qualities, he exhibits some of the qualities that he abhors, thereby making him a somewhat tragic character. Holden is very much a character of contradiction; At six feet, two-and-a-half inches, he is tall for his age and already has some gray hair - though he himself admits that he acts more like a 13-year-old than an adult. He continually fails classes and calls himself "dumb," yet he shows intelligence through his reasonably articulate narration. This idea in the book may be Holden's criticism of a society that is unable to acknowledge his hidden intelligence.
Read more about this topic: Holden Caulfield
Famous quotes containing the words appearance and, appearance and/or personality:
“You speak of poverty and dependence. Who are poor and dependent? Who are rich and independent? When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”
—Bible: Hebrew, 1 Samuel 16:7.
“I am what is mine. Personality is the original personal property.”
—Norman O. Brown (b. 1913)