Holden's Imposter Syndrome
After leaving Pencey and recklessly running around New York, I can imagine Holden finally making up his mind to become the better version of himself. In the final chapters where Phoebe becomes a huge part of the story, Holden realizes that maybe there is more to his life than just calling everyone phony. Over and over again, we see Holden comply with everything that Phoebe tells him to do. This unconditional love for someone in his life kind of grounds him so that he doesn’t lose himself in his wild thoughts again. I think to extend the novel, he eventually gets diagnosed with imposter syndrome by Carl Luce's dad, the psychoanalyst mentioned at the end of the book. During the interaction between Carl Luce and Holden, Holden demonstrates a rare interest that he had in Old Luce’s life which we have never seen with other characters. Throughout the entire conversation, Holden was trying to interrogate Luce’s personal life without thinking that he was being his own kind of phony. With ...