Lying & Social Interaction in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time & The Catcher in the Rye

Both The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and The Catcher in the Rye portray the idea that, although lying is not always morally right and can cause misunderstandings, it is natural for people and is sometimes needed in social interactions. 

Lying is talked about a lot by Christopher, the protagonist and narrator, in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. It also has a big impact on the plot: when it is revealed that Christopher's father was lying about his mother's death, it changes the course of the story and the relationships between Christopher and his parents.

Christopher is unable to tell or detect lies because of his social and attention difficulties one could infer to be caused by an autism spectrum disorder. His definition of a lie is "...when you say something happened which didn't happen" (Haddon 19) but he can't tell lies because if he would try to do so say something that didn't actually happen he would start to think of the infinite number of possible things that could have happened in place of what actually did happen (Haddon 19). Because of this, Christopher does not like when people lie and cannot understand the reasons that people have for lying. 

Some of his social struggles also stem from the fact that he can't understand lies. Anything that isn't one hundred percent straightforward or can have more than one meaning, such as fictional stories, jokes, metaphors or facial expressions, Christopher doesn't like or understand, and also considers lying. 

For example, Christopher describes this by listing some metaphors that people often use such as "He was the apple of her eye."; "They had a Skeleton in the cupboard."; and "We had a real pig of a day" and says that a metaphor "should be called a lie because a pig is not like a day and people do not have skeletons in their cupboards. And...imagining an apple is someone's eye doesn't have anything to do with liking someone a lot and makes you forget what the person was talking about" (Haddon 15). He doesn't like jokes such as "His face was drawn but the curtains were real" because it has three different meanings and when he hears it he thinks of all three of them which he says "...is like hearing three different pieces of music at the same time..." (Haddon 8). Novels, he doesn't like "...because they are lies about things which didn't happen and they make [him] feel shaky and scared" (Haddon 20). 

This really gives him a disadvantage socially because people use these kind of language devices a lot when interacting with each other. Another trait related to lying that handicaps Christopher socially is sometimes being too truthful and not trying to hide what he's feeling to avoid hurting others' feelings or to abide by his social norms. When he gives examples of some of his behavioural problems one of them is that he says things too often that other people think are rude (Haddon 46). He defends himself on this by saying:

People say that you always have to tell the truth. But they do not mean this because you are not allowed to tell old people that they are old and you are not allowed to tell people if they smell funny or if a grown-up has made a fart. And you are not allowed to say, "I don't like you," unless that person has been horrible to you. (Haddon 46)

Even though he doesn't say it out loud to people some of his other descriptions that he has of people such as when he calls all the other kids with learning difficulties at school stupid (Haddon 43) or says the policeman at the police station has such a hairy nose that "...it look[s] as if there were two very small mice hiding in his nostrils" (Haddon 17) - could be quite insulting and hurtful to them. 

People don't like being reminded of their faults and imperfections even if they know they are true, but Christopher doesn't get this concept. When being interviewed, after hitting a policeman, Christopher also refuses to tell anything but the exact truth even though it doesn't help his situation (Haddon 17). The police officer doing the interview asks him if he meant to hit the police officer and Christopher says he did mean to hit the police officer and has to be asked if he meant to hurt the police officer which Christopher finally says he did not mean to do (Haddon 17). His idea that he has to be fully truthful no matter the context does not help him in this circumstance. 

Not only is Christopher a loose cannon, he also doesn't try to hide his lack of sympathy for people by lying or doing what is the socially acceptable thing to do. When he is going door-to-door trying to get information about who killed Wellington, and Mrs. Alexander offers him a drink and some cake, he does not just accept or politely decline the offer (Haddon 41) which would be the normal thing to do to avoid insulting the person offering, he tells her exactly what he doesn't like about the specific kind of cake that she offers. He then decides to just walk away when she doesn't come back outside for a few minutes (Haddon 41), which could possibly hurt her feelings as well. 

Also, when he arrives at his mother's house and she sees him for the first time in years, she tries to hug him but he uncaringly pushes her away (Haddon 191). Although Christopher cannot help that he cannot lie or hide his feelings, if he learned to do so people might like him better.

Ed, Christopher's father is almost a foil to Christopher in that he feels the need to tell lies and does so because he is worried about how Christopher would feel if he told the truth. When Ed finds Christopher reading the letters from Christopher's mother that he had hidden from Christopher and Christopher realizes that he had been lying to him about his mother's death all along, Ed tries to explain why he didn't just tell Christopher the truth about his mother going off to have an affair with Mr. Shears:

I did it for your good, Christopher. Honestly I did. I never meant to lie. I just thought... I just thought it would be better if you didn't know It was so complicated. So difficult. And I... I said she was in hospital. And I know it wasn't true. But once I'd said that... I couldn't... I couldn't change it. Do you understand... Christopher...? Christopher...? (Haddon 114)

Although he knows it's not right, it was natural for him at the time to not want to tell the truth because he was feeling so rotten about the whole situation himself and didn't know how Christopher would react to the news; he couldn't help lying.

In The Catcher in the Rye, the lying that takes place is in the form of the phoniness or superficialness that people display that covers up their true feelings or morals. From his narration and his commentary about the people he interacts with throughout the book, it is evident that Holden is very judgemental of people he notices are being phony or superficial. 

While talking to Mr. Spencer about being kicked out of Pencey, Holden has a flashback about why he had left one of his three other former high schools and introduces his judgemental views. He says he was "...surrounded by phonies" (Salinger 17) there and describes the headmaster at the school Mr. Haas as the "phoniest bastard [he] ever met in [his] life" (Salinger 17). 

For example, Holden explains when parents would come on a weekend to visit their kids at the boarding school, Mr. Haas would always act very friendly, welcoming and professional: greeting the parents, shaking all their hands, smiling at them, but Holden could tell that when he was shaking the hands of parents who were lower-class or not very good-looking he did so half-heartedly and then went on to have long conversations with other parents he thought more highly of (Salinger 17). 

Holden does not like the kind of behaviour Mr. Haas displays being nice to everyone probably to give himself a good image and to avoid controversy, but really only being nice to the lower-class parents because they pay to send their kids to his school - and says that seeing the superficialness of it makes him feel depressed. He doesn't think it from Mr. Haas perspective though; if Mr. Haas had revealed his true feelings about them instead of just passing them by more quickly than parents he thought more highly of - it may have made the parents feel worse. It was natural for Mr. Haas to act this way with his position and in this social situation and Holden may have done the same thing if he was in his place.

This somewhat exaggerated, over-critical judgement Holden has of Mr. Haas, foreshadows the many other judgements and opinions he has about people being phony or disguising their true feelings. Holden criticizes his roommate Stradlater for looking good to cover up how much of a slob he is in his personal hygiene habits (Salinger 31). Of course, there is nothing actually wrong with looking good even though Holden says that the reason he tries makes himself look good is that he's "...madly in love with himself" (Salinger 31), There is nothing wrong with making oneself look good even if doesn't show one's true self.

At Ernie's bar, Holden judges people for clapping too much for a piano performance by Ernie (Salinger 94). Even though Holden doesn't like Ernie's performance, he says he feels sorry for him because with people clapping spontaneously without actually deciding for themselves if they like the performance or not, Ernie doesn't know if people actually played the piano piece right or not (Salinger 94). This also, is an irrational judgement. People always clap for a performance whether they like it or not; they were trying to show courtesy, not trying to be mean by hiding what they truly think of the performance. 

Outside of the movie theatre while he is on his date with Sally and Sally starts talking to a guy wearing an Ivy League jacket who she apparently knows. Holden is critical of how they talk to each other (Salinger 141) because he thinks they had only met each other once at a party but says that they talk to each other as if "...they hadn't seen each other in twenty years..." (Salinger 141) or "...they'd taken baths in the same bathtub or something when they were little kids..." (Salinger 141). 

Really though, they were just innocently trying to make casual conversation with each other because if they didn't really know each other too well and didn't have to talk about it would have just been awkward for them not to just talk about something shallow or on the surface. There are many other examples throughout The Catcher in the Rye of Holden making criticisms about people not showing their true feelings. The thing he doesn't realize though is he is very hypocritical: he uses what he would describe as phoniness when interacting with people on many occasions as well.

When Holden ditches Pencey and gets on a train for New York, he has a funny conversation filled with lies with a mother of one of his classmates that happened to sit beside him on the train. When she first sits beside him and tells her she's Ernest Morrow's mother Holden describes Ernest in his narration as "...the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey, in the whole crumby history of the school" (Salinger 61). He then gives her a fake name for himself (Salinger 61), tells her a false excuse about why his face is bleeding (Salinger 63), hides the real reason that he is going home early for Christmas vacation (Salinger 65), gives big compliments about Ernest when she asks about him (Salinger 62) and flatters her with exuberant speeches about how great of a guy Ernest is (Salinger 64). These are all things that help him get by in this somewhat uncomfortable social situation. Holden even admits that he goes overboard with his lies. He says

...I started reading my timetable I had in my pocket. Just to stop lying. Once I get started I can go on for hours if I feel like it. No kidding. Hours. (Salinger 65)

Despite saying this, he does not seem to see his lies as a bad thing or the hypocrisy in them. Since Holden is just a teenager but is off by himself and goes to places that are usually meant for adults, Holden lies about his age a lot. 

When he calls a girl that he had heard of and who he wanted to go for cocktails or spend the night with, he "...made [his] voice quite deep so that she wouldn't suspect [his] age or anything" (Salinger 72). In the hotel lobby he tries to make himself seem older so he can buy drinks and so that he can ask some girls from Seattle who are a lot older than him, to dance (Salinger 78). He goes to Ernie's bar and doesn't worry about being underage because if you were only around six years old you could get liquor at Ernie's, the place was so dark and all, and besides, nobody cared how old you were" (Salinger 95). Holden again is oblivious to the fact that he's being a hypocrite; he's trying to hide part of his true self, his age in this case, even though he hates when other people do the same thing.

Casual sex, and sex in general, is something that Holden has varying opinions on but he does realize that he does not always follow his own values when his hormones take over. He says

Sometimes I can think of very crumby stuff I wouldn't mind doing if the opportunity came up.... The thing is though I don't like the idea. 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...1 (Salinger 70)

He then goes on to admit "I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away" (Salinger 70). Despite the fact that he affirms that he breaks his own rules, he still doesn't see that he is just like everyone he criticizes: he acts on impulses even if it goes against his moral values. It's natural for him to do so.

Holden, at his school and on his journeys around New York, comes in contact with many different people. He is usually fairly cynical about them and comments a lot about the traits of phoniness and hypocrisy - forms of lying - that they display. Although he is very judgemental of other people and how superficial they are in social interactions, he does not realize that he uses the same kind of superficialness himself. 

Mr. Antolini tells Holden, after Holden tells him some of his feelings about people, that if Holden keeps this kind of attitude always hating and judging people for how they interact with each other he may have "...some kind of a terrible, terrible fall" or at least have some kind of troubles in his future (Salinger 206). Holden needs to realize that all people, including him, use forms of lying when interacting all the time and there is nothing he can do to change it. 

Holden in The Catcher in the Rye and Christopher in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time have similar opinions about people who are not truthful. Holden becomes angry at people or depressed with society when people try to hide their true feelings and Christopher becomes confused and sometimes outraged when people don't tell him the forthright truth. The difference between them though is Holden actually commits the same kinds of acts of lying which he criticizes other people for, while Christopher is unable to do so because of his disorder. As a result, Holden is still able to interact with people in many different social situations despite his bitterness while Christopher has a more difficult time. 

Although they can't change the natural habits of lying that people have, if Holden wouldn't be so critical of lies, and Christopher would be able to tell and distinguish lies they would both have an easier or at least more pleasant time in social interactions.

Works Cited

Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Toronto: Anchor Canada, 2004.

Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2014.