Holden Caulfield

Holden Caulfield seems to have all these different kinds of people stuck together in one body. He can be very generous, as he is to the nuns, very mean. He even lies to people. But one thing Holden has is a moral code that he goes by. In the Catcher in the Rye Holden shows at least three elements of his moral code.

One of his elements of his moral code is that it’s all right to lie to make people feel better. One quote to prove that is, “Old Mrs. Morrow didn’t say anything but boy you should have seen her. I had her glued to her seat. You take somebody’s mother; all they want to hear about is what a hot-shot their son is.” There you can see that Mrs. Morrow was really happy to hear that her son was doing well at Pencey, which made her feel better about her son. The point is that even though he lies, he sometimes lies to make others feel better, which is part of his moral code.

Holden not only lies to make others feel better, he also respects girls when many guys don‘t. Holden says regarding how men treat girls is, “It stinks if you analyze it. I think if you don’t really like a girl, you shouldn’t horse around with her at all, and if you do like her, then you’re supposed to like her face, and if you like her face, you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to it, like squirting water all over it.” Holden doesn’t like it when guys play around with girls they don’t like. The point is that, in his moral code, boys shouldn’t