Holden finds value in sincerity. The reason he calls other people phonies because he thinks that they are typical people who aren’t genuine. In chapter 19 Holden thinks back to when he was young. He says “He’s the best drummer I ever saw. He only gets a chance to bang them a couple of times during a whole piece, but he never looks bored when he isn’t doing. Then when he does bang them, he does it so nice and sweet, with this nervous expression on his face.”
This shows us how Holden finds interest in people who have a passion for what they do. Even though it may be a small job, he wants to see people make small positive impacts. In order to be passionate and sincere, it is important for one to know oneself very well. They should be able to interpret their feelings and connect with others. Holden will find a conversation intelligent when he is talking to someone passionate about something they love. He finds intelligence in knowing oneself before anything. We can see that Holden has a different interpretation of intelligence when he says “He had the largest vocabulary of any boy at Whooton when I was there. They gave us a test.” He talks about how the world around him had set the standards of intelligence through a test, which he mocks in a sarcastic tone. Holden just sees the test as a limit society sets. Holden sees intelligence in something else. He would describe an intelligent conversation as a talk of sincerity. Holden will exclude society’s standards of intelligence when he defines it. He calls most people phony’s so it is obvious that he will ignore their understanding of intelligence.
I agree with you that Holden would equate intelligence to passion and not with academic achievement, which is normally how intelligence is assessed. When talking to Mr. Antolini, Holden mentions how he enjoyed listening to his classmate talk about his family as a tangent while talking about farms. It really bothered him that people would yell "digression!": "I mean it's dirty to keep yelling 'Digression!' at him when he's all nice and excited..." (Salinger 184). Perhaps Holden interprets passion to be an indication of sincerity. Thus, maybe another definition for intelligence according to Holden is that intelligence is defined by sincerity.
ReplyDeleteYage, I agree with you when you say that Holden relates intelligence with passion instead than with academics. Which now a days is how people can judge intelligence. I think that you mention a very important point and this is that he would say that a conversation about sincerity would be an intelligent conversation for him. I believe that this s true because sincerity is very important for someone to be an integrate person, and I completely agree with Holden because when you lie or you aren't sincere, you also lie to your self and this is quite dumb to do so really agree with you and I I think it was very important that you mention it
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