Holden comes out as a complex individual since he upholds varied conflicting characteristics. He possesses many desires and ambitions, but he is faced with varied basic conflicts in his way towards trying to actualize them. The story The Catcher in the Rye is told in a first person narrative meaning that the point of view comes from one individual. Given that the story is told from Holden’s troubled mind, there is the possibility that the experiences have been distorted. Various aspects of the novel portray Holden as an unreliable narrator because he has a high propensity for lying, exaggerating occurrences, contradicting issues and also bears a negative attitude towards other people.

Holden is an unreliable narrator since most of his views contradict themselves due to his own confusion. This confusion tends to blind him, and he is not able to realize that most of the criticisms that he upholds are against himself. The novel demonstrates this with a quote from page 46 that reads, “All that blood and all sort of made me look tough. I’d only been in about two fights in my life, and I lost both of them. I’m not too tough. I’m a pacifist, if you want to know the truth”(46). This quote shows that Holden enjoys being beaten up, but this contradicts his stance that he is a peaceful person. This contradiction shows how unreliable he can be.

Another aspect that shows Holden is an unreliable narrator is the fact that he is a self-confessed liar. At the beginning of Chapter 3, Holden says “I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It’s awful. If I’m on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I’m going, I’m liable to say I’m going to the opera. It’s terrible”. How would anyone believe such an individual? He even goes to the extent of saying how good he is with lying. The fact that Holden views other people as being the same, and he is the only one that appears different tends to show how unreliable he can be. He does not desire to see what underlies an individual’s outward appearance; he does not see any difference with other people. He thinks that the society if full of “phony” people, but he is not one of them. Such an individual cannot be reliable upon to narrate his encounters with other people without being biased.

In conclusion, Holden can be regarded as an unreliable narrator. An unreliable narrator is an individual whose account of events are distorted, exaggerated or biased. As a result, they cannot be trusted. Holden has a high propensity for lying, exaggerating occurrences, contradicting issues and bears a negative attitude towards other people. This makes him an unreliable narrator since there is a probability that most of his narrations are not truthful.

Do you need an Original High Quality Academic Custom Essay?