nothing is real but everything is for sale
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is one of those novels that has, over time, been both idolized and misunderstood. While its core message deals with themes of alienation, the complexities of adolescence, and the desire to protect innocence, much of its nuance has been lost in modern interpretations.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is one of those iconic novels that captures the essence of teenage rebellion, alienation, and the struggle to find one’s place in a world that feels fake and hostile. The story revolves around Holden Caulfield, a 16-year-old boy who’s recently been kicked out of his prestigious boarding school. The novel follows him over a few days as he roams through New York City, avoiding going home to face his parents. He’s not your typical rebellious teenager—Holden is deeply troubled, caught in this spiral of grief, loneliness, and an overwhelming desire to protect the innocence he feels slipping away from himself and the world.
Holden’s main gripe with the world is that it’s filled with "phonies"—people who pretend to be something they’re not, playing into societal expectations, chasing material wealth, and performing roles that feel fake to him. He doesn’t want to be a part of that world, but at the same time, he’s terrified of growing up and becoming just like the people he despises. The novel’s title comes from his fantasy of becoming the "catcher in the rye"—someone who stands in a field, catching children before they fall off the cliff of adulthood, protecting them from losing their innocence.
Holden’s journey through the city is a search for meaning, connection, and some kind of truth in a world that feels overwhelmingly confusing and corrupt. Throughout the novel, you get glimpses of his deep internal struggles—grieving the death of his younger brother, Allie, and navigating the blurry, messy line between adolescence and adulthood.
Themes of loss, mental health, and the conflict between innocence and experience run deep in the novel, but it’s often misunderstood as just a story about teen angst or rebellion. The real beauty lies in Holden’s vulnerability and the way his outward anger and cynicism are really masks for a much deeper fear and sadness.
He’s the dude who walks through New York like a ghost, constantly on the verge of a breakdown but playing it cool with a cigarette and a half-baked plan to run away from it all. It’s like that Bob Dylan line: “People don’t do what they believe in, they just do what’s most convenient, then they repent.” That’s the world Holden’s running from—a place where people play the game, put on a show, and do what’s easy. Holden’s not about that life.
His dream? It’s a little messed up but also kinda beautiful. He pictures himself as the "catcher in the rye," saving kids before they fall off this metaphorical cliff, before they lose that raw, untouched innocence. He wants to be the one who catches them before they land in the muddy pit of adulthood. Holden’s heart is broken, though—he’s grieving his younger brother Allie, and that loss has shattered him in ways he doesn’t fully understand. It’s like when Frank Ocean says, “In life, we’re all just walking through fog—hoping, someday, that we’ll find something real.”
That’s Holden’s struggle—he’s walking through the fog, waiting to find something real, something untouched by the phoniness he despises. But the more he walks, the more he realizes the world’s full of it. It’s like when Childish Gambino says in “3005”, “No matter what you say or what you do, when I’m alone, I’d rather be with you.” Holden’s roaming through the city alone, but he’s constantly yearning for connection—whether it’s with his sister Phoebe or just a stranger who’ll see him as more than a lost kid.
People think The Catcher in the Rye is all about rebellion, but really, it’s about trying to hold onto something pure while everything around you feels like it’s being bought and sold. It’s that moment when you realize, no matter how hard you try, the world’s going to keep spinning, and you’ve got to decide whether to jump in or stand on the sidelines calling it all fake. Holden’s refusal to play the game doesn’t make him a hero—it just makes him more lost.
If Holden lived in today’s world, he’d be the kid sitting in the corner at the party, the one who hates small talk and sees through everyone’s Instagram highlights. He’d be listening to Mac Miller’s “2009”, hearing, “I don’t need to lie no more. Nowadays, all I do is shine.” But the sad part is, Holden doesn’t know how to shine. He’s still figuring out what that means in a world that doesn’t give him any solid ground to stand on. He can’t trust the adults, and he’s terrified of becoming one of them. His escape plan? To never grow up, never lose that flicker of something genuine.
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” Gandhi said that, but Holden’s version is more twisted. He’s not trying to lose himself in helping others—he’s trying to save them from losing themselves. That’s why he’s so obsessed with protecting the kids playing in the rye field. It’s his way of fighting back against a world that’s already chewed him up.
Holden’s not just angry—he’s scared. It’s not about running from the rules; it’s about running from a future he can’t see himself fitting into. He’s caught between that Jay-Z mentality of “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man” and his own fear of becoming the very thing he hates. At the end of the day, Holden’s just trying to find some version of himself that’s real—something that hasn’t been corrupted by the fake smiles and empty promises.
So yeah, The Catcher in the Rye hits harder than your average "teen angst" novel. It’s more like that one lyric from The Smiths: “I am human, and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does.” That’s Holden—he’s human, lost, grieving, and trying to catch a break in a world that doesn’t seem to have one left for him.
In today’s post-truth world, Holden would probably be blogging about the phoniness of influencers or trying to ghost social media altogether, all while secretly hoping someone, anyone, would see through the mask he’s wearing and understand the pain he’s trying to hide.
In post-truth we are not at all like Tyler Durden from Fight Club, railing against IKEA furniture and corporate job. We see similarities in the rejecting of fake authenticity, modern life—the curated feeds, the hustle culture, and the hollow pursuit of virality. Fight Club isn’t underground anymore; it’s a live-streamed event, another content opportunity in the attention economy. Tyler’s philosophy gets co-opted by brands looking to sell rebellion as a lifestyle. The narrator doesn’t even realize he’s part of the same system he thought he was fighting because in the post-truth world, nothing is real but everything is for sale.
today’s Raisin in the Sun, i.e. the Younger family, they wouldn’t be able to afford the house they’ve been dreaming of. They’d be stuck in bidding wars with hedge funds and real estate developers snapping up property. Lena’s dream of homeownership becomes less about upward mobility and more about survival in a housing market that’s rigged for those already at the top. Walter’s pursuit of success in business? That’s him trying to launch a start-up in a flooded market, where success is determined by venture capitalists who couldn’t care less about his dreams. In a world where “the system is rigged” feels like an understatement, the Younger family’s battle isn’t just about race—it’s about class warfare in a rigged economic game.
Orwell’s classics, transported into a world where “Animal Farm” and “1984” surprisingly resonates as they converge in the throes of social media and influencer culture, sketching a satire of our post-truth society. It’s a reality where the allegorical tyranny of pigs is dwarfed by the sprawling influence of digital overlords—every animal with a smartphone, turning Orwell’s stark warnings into hashtags and sound bites.
The slogan “All animals are equal” has transcended its revolutionary origins to become a trendy tagline, appended to every post, every video, every tweet. It’s no longer a cry for liberation but a hook to snag viewers, a phrase emptied of meaning and refilled with the promises of sponsored content. Equality is marketed, packaged in neat 30-second ads featuring smiling animals, now brand ambassadors, promoting everything from luxury hay to designer mud baths.
The Transparent Tyranny of Big Data
Orwell’s Big Brother once loomed large, a clear and present surveillance state that watched over every aspect of life. In this reimagined narrative, Big Brother fragments into Big Data, an omnipresent force that’s far more insidious because it’s invisible and insidious. Surveillance is no longer just governmental; it’s commercialized. Every click, every swipe is tracked, analyzed, and fed into algorithms that predict and manipulate, turning personal data into the most valuable commodity on the farm.
Social media algorithms, the new Ministry of Truth, don’t just offer up facts; they shape reality. News is no longer something that happens but something that’s made. What trends isn’t necessarily what’s true but what’s clickable. The 24-hour news cycle churns out stories with little regard for truth, each headline more sensational than the last, blurring the lines between reality and fabrication until they’re indistinguishably merged.
Everyone’s a Spin Doctor
In Orwell’s day, the government had a monopoly on truth. In our story, that monopoly has been democratized. Everyone with access to the internet can be a spin doctor; every user is both consumer and creator of their version of truth. Historical accuracy becomes a collective casualty as every person’s blog, tweet, or post can revise the past, unchallenged and unchecked.
In the digital sprawl of this new Animal Farm, the revolution is never final; it’s an ongoing series of updates, each version erasing and rewriting the last. The true horror of Orwell’s vision isn’t just realized but augmented—a world where truth is not just obscured by the state but dismantled by the citizen, where Big Brother isn’t a tyrant to be overthrown but an algorithm to be optimized.
Sort of reminds us of "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller. Willy Loman isn’t selling physical goods anymore; he’s probably selling life coaching courses or working for a multi-level marketing company peddling essential oils. His desperation isn’t just about his own failure but also how everyone around him is feeding him half-truths about success and happiness, all while silently hoping to get ahead. Willy’s spiral is sped up in a post-truth society where validation comes from meaningless metrics—likes, shares, retweets—none of which pay the rent. His breakdown isn’t just a personal tragedy; it’s the logical conclusion of living in a world where self-worth is quantified by engagement numbers, not human relationships. Or take In 2024, Gatsby isn’t a charming millionaire throwing extravagant parties—he’s probably some tech bro with a shady cryptocurrency empire. Daisy is no longer the embodiment of his dream, but a disillusioned influencer selling lifestyle brands on Instagram. The entire notion of chasing the American Dream becomes futile, as even when Gatsby "makes it," we know it’s all a house of cards built on shaky crypto markets and fake followers. The green light at the end of the dock? That’s just the glow of a Ring camera surveilling the neighbors. The dream isn’t just elusive—it’s curated for the 'gram, sponsored by a mattress company.
We’re not just trying to rehash the classics or slap a postmodern lens on everything like it’s some cheap filter. You’re looking for timeless pieces that society has misunderstood or twisted over time—narratives that started with depth, only to be reduced to overused symbols or catchphrases, much like Canada’s seemingly endless housing bubble, which keeps swelling until it might pop, or maybe it’ll just limp along, who knows? It’s a spectacle, but the core issues are buried. Let’s dig deeper, unearth those original pieces of literature that have been distorted by time and trends.
The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery is a powerful critique of blind adherence to tradition. It’s a small-town story where the community holds a lottery to determine who will be sacrificed to ensure a good harvest. The real horror isn’t in the violence but in how ordinary people accept and carry out barbarism without question. It’s a timeless commentary on how societal norms can go unquestioned and become ritualized brutality.
The Lottery often gets reduced to a basic story about the horrors of mob mentality. What people tend to overlook is how deeply the story critiques the everyday, normalized violence that society participates in under the guise of maintaining order. In modern discourse, it’s often used as a quick reference for "mob violence," but the true impact lies in its reflection of institutional violence—how we accept harmful systems because “it’s the way things have always been.” This mirrors many aspects of modern life, like economic systems (the housing bubble?) where we stick to broken norms despite the harm they cause.
The Lottery, today would be about how we blindly participate in destructive systems—only now, we’re more aware of it, yet still complicit. The town might run a social media campaign, convincing everyone that the sacrifice is a noble act, full of hashtags and PR statements. The twist? Everyone knows the truth, but they do it anyway because there’s no longer a clear path to rebellion. The story shifts from blind ignorance to willful ignorance.
The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
This short story is a feminist classic that highlights the oppression of women through the protagonist’s descent into madness as she is confined to a room by her husband. The wallpaper becomes a symbol of her mental entrapment, as she starts seeing women trapped within its patterns. The story critiques the way patriarchal systems impose control over women’s bodies and minds, presenting "treatment" as a method of control rather than healing. Modern readers often see this story as just a horror tale about one woman’s mental breakdown. The deeper layer—its critique of gender roles, medical authority, and the way society silences women—gets lost in this simple horror narrative. It becomes more about the spooky wallpaper and less about the institutional gaslighting that’s taking place. Society forgets that this isn’t just a story about mental illness; it’s about the systematic erasure of women’s voices.
The Yellow Wallpaper becomes about how misinformation and manipulated narratives trap people inside false realities. The wallpaper becomes not just a symbol of patriarchy but of the algorithms that dictate our realities online. The protagonist is not only trapped by the patterns in the wallpaper but by the endless echo chambers that manipulate her understanding of her own experiences. Gaslighting isn't just from the husband—it’s from the world around her, where every news source tells her she’s crazy for questioning the system.
Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ozymandias is a haunting reflection on the ephemeral nature of power. The poem describes a traveler encountering the ruins of a once-great statue, now broken and forgotten in the desert. The inscription reads, "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" But all that’s left is decay, a powerful reminder that all empires, no matter how grand, will eventually crumble into dust. Ozymandias is often used as a reference for the fall of dictatorships or authoritarian regimes, as a symbol of hubris. What tends to get lost is the quiet, devastating truth about impermanence. It’s not just about one dictator falling—it’s about the inevitability that every power structure will fall. It’s less about the tyrant and more about the fact that time itself erodes everything, including the systems we think are invincible. This also applies to economic bubbles that seem untouchable—whether that’s real estate or political power. Ozymandias becomes less about the ruins of the past and more about the fleeting nature of narratives. It’s not just empires that crumble; truth itself erodes in the digital age. The ruins of Ozymandias are the remnants of truths we once held as unshakeable, now buried under layers of misinformation, forgotten because they’ve been replaced by newer, shinier lies. The poem reflects how easily we let go of what’s real, and how history, like that forgotten statue, becomes distorted or buried entirely.
The dilapidated statue serves as a symbol of the futility of human efforts to immortalize themselves through monuments. Despite Ozymandias’s attempt to eternalize his glory, time and nature have reduced
The inscription on the pedestal highlights Ozymandias’s arrogance and his belief in his eternal rule. The poem serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of hubris and the folly of human pride.
"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" this villanelle by Dylan Thomas is a passionate plea to rage against death, to fight for life with every last ounce of strength. It’s an intense meditation on mortality and resistance, urging us not to surrender quietly to the inevitable. The repeated refrain, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light," serves as a cry to resist the encroachment of death. People often use this poem to champion the idea of fighting against fate, but in doing so, they miss the quiet desperation underneath it. The poem isn’t just about heroism; it’s about fear, about the looming presence of death and how our resistance is as much an act of fear as it is of defiance. Society often co-opts the poem as motivational, losing the core message that death and futility are inescapable, but fighting against it is part of the human condition. "Do Not Go Gentle" becomes a plea to resist not just death, but apathy. It’s about raging against the slow erasure of reality, fighting to hold onto something—anything—that feels genuine in a world that tries to replace it with shallow, curated lies. The light isn’t just life; it’s truth, it’s integrity, it’s meaning in an age where we’re constantly being told to let go and accept whatever alternative facts come our way. The fight is no longer just against death, but against losing the very essence of what it means to be human.
Original Essence of Jonathan Swifts a modest proposal, a satirical essay, is a brutal critique of British colonialism and the exploitation of the Irish poor. In suggesting that the Irish sell their children as food, Swift’s work exposes the inhumanity of economic and political policies that treat people as mere commodities. His solution, of course, is absurd, but it’s meant to shed light on the extreme and heartless policies already in place.
Today, A Modest Proposal is often referenced in passing as a dark, ironic commentary, but its biting critique of systemic exploitation is frequently missed. The focus is often on the absurdity of the cannibalistic suggestion rather than on how economic policies dehumanize the poor. People tend to laugh at the outrageousness without considering how relevant Swift’s critique remains—especially when it comes to how societies continue to treat the disadvantaged as expendable.
In a post-truth world, Swift’s satire becomes all too real. We live in an age where extreme solutions, once considered absurd, can become policy discussions. The essay now reflects the way inhumane policies are spun as "necessary evils" by governments and corporations, feeding the public false narratives about what's "good for the economy." Swift’s irony becomes almost prophetic, as we see modern policies that exploit the vulnerable dressed up in the language of "efficiency" and "progress." The cannibalism in Swift’s proposal isn’t that far off from the moral cannibalism we witness in today’s political rhetoric.
These works were once sharp critiques of the human condition, but over time, society has dulled their edges, often distilling them into something easier to digest—whether that’s an oversimplified metaphor or a motivational slogan. But when viewed through a post-truth lens, they regain their original force, reminding us that the human capacity for self-deception and societal manipulation has only grown more sophisticated, more pervasive. The challenge is to return to these stories, reclaim their bite, and see them for what they were meant to be: enduring reminders of our vulnerabilities, our failures, and—if we’re paying attention—our potential to see through the lies.
