From the moment that Franny gets off of the train, she talks about conformity. When she makes fun of the girls on the train that are stereotypes of their schools, she is both recognizing and insulting their similarity to all those who attend the same institution. This theme is crucial because Franny is trying to avoid being like everybody else, but she also feels hopelessly trapped. After all, even her boyfriend, Lane, tries hard to fit in and look just right. When the two go to Sickler’s, Lane is content because he is in the right place with a “right-looking” girl. He thinks to himself that she is not too “categorically cashmere sweater and flannel skirt.” (Salinger, 2007: 2) In other words, in his eyes she is not too predictable and ordinary. This thought seems to be an example of his conformity; it is “right-looking” to have a date who does not look boring. Franny is struggling to avoid this kind of conformity but cannot seem to escape it.

Franny is becoming disgusted with conformity. Her frustration brings up the themes of inpidual importance and creation versus destruction. She dislikes the English department at her college because she thinks that the older teachers do not give undergraduates any credit for their own ideas and, therefore, destroy their interest in study. She also dislikes the so-called “section men”. A section man is usually a graduate student who takes over a class when the professor isn’t there. They look down at Franny and other undergraduates, regarding themselves to be right all the time. Franny seems to despise the idea that only people who are older and have been studying literature longer really know how to interpret it. She thinks that the ideas of every inpidual should be considered important. In addition, Franny hates that the people in the department only criticize and tear literature apart but never create anything.