Catcher in The Rye Notes (1) .Docx - 1521010892473
Catcher in The Rye Notes (1) .Docx - 1521010892473
Catcher in The Rye Notes (1) .Docx - 1521010892473
Context
Jerome David Salinger was born in New York City in 1919. The son of a wealthy cheese importer, Salinger
grew up in a fashionable neighborhood in Manhattan and spent his youth being shuttled between various prep
schools before his parents finally settled on the Valley Forge Military Academy in 1934. He graduated from
Valley Forge in 1936 and attended a number of colleges, including Columbia University, but did not graduate
from any of them. While at Columbia, Salinger took a creative writing class in which he excelled, cementing the
interest in writing that he had maintained since his teenage years. Salinger had his first short story published in
1940; he continued to write as he joined the army and fought in Europe during World War II. Upon his return to
the United States and civilian life in 1946, Salinger wrote more stories, publishing them in many respected
magazines. In 1951, Salinger published his only fulllength novel, The Catcher in the Rye, which propelled him
onto the national stage.
Many events from Salinger’s early life appear in The Catcher in the Rye. For instance, Holden Caulfield moves
from prep school to prep school, is threatened with military school, and knows an older Columbia student. In the
novel, such autobiographical details are transplanted into a post–World War II setting.The Catcher in the
Rye was published at a time when the burgeoning American industrial economy made the nation prosperous
and entrenched social rules served as a code of conformity for the younger generation. Because Salinger used
slang and profanity in his text and because he discussed adolescent sexuality in a complex and open way,
many readers were offended, and The Catcher in the Rye provoked great controversy upon its release. Some
critics argued that the book was not serious literature, citing its casual and informal tone as evidence. The book
was—and continues to be—banned in some communities, and it consequently has been thrown into the center
of debates about First Amendment rights, censorship, and obscenity in literature.
Though controversial, the novel appealed to a great number of people. It was a hugely popular bestseller and
general critical success. Salinger’s writing seemed to tap into the emotions of readers in an unprecedented way.
As countercultural revolt began to grow during the 1950s and 1960s, The Catcher in the Rye was frequently
read as a tale of an individual’s alienation within a heartless world. Holden seemed to stand for young people
everywhere, who felt themselves beset on all sides by pressures to grow up and live their lives according to the
rules, to disengage from meaningful human connection, and to restrict their own personalities and conform to a
bland cultural norm. Many readers saw Holden Caulfield as a symbol of pure, unfettered individuality in the face
of cultural oppression.
In the same year that The Catcher in the Rye appeared, Salinger published a short story in The New
Yorker magazine called “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” which proved to be the first in a series of stories about
the fictional Glass family. Over the next decade, other “Glass” stories appeared in the same magazine: “Franny,”
“Zooey,” and “Raise High the RoofBeam, Carpenters.” These and other stories are available in the only other
books Salinger published besides The Catcher in the Rye: Nine Stories (1953),Franny and Zooey (1961),
and Raise High the RoofBeam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963). Though Nine
Stories received some critical acclaim, the critical reception of the later stories was hostile. Critics generally
found the Glass siblings to be ridiculously and insufferably precocious and judgmental.
Beginning in the early 1960s, as his critical reputation waned, Salinger began to publish less and to disengage
from society. In 1965, after publishing another Glass story (“Hapworth 26, 1924”) that was widely reviled by
critics, he withdrew almost completely from public life, a stance he has maintained up to the present. This
reclusiveness, ironically, made Salinger even more famous, transforming him into a cult figure. To some degree,
Salinger’s cult status has overshadowed, or at least tinged, many readers’ perceptions of his work. As a
recluse, Salinger, for many, embodied much the same spirit as his precocious, wounded characters, and many
readers view author and characters as the same being. Such a reading of Salinger’s work clearly oversimplifies
the process of fiction writing and the relationship between the author and his creations. But, given Salinger’s
iconoclastic behavior, the general view that Salinger was himself a sort of Holden Caulfield is understandable.
The few brief public statements that Salinger made before his death in 2010 suggested that he continued to
write stories, implying that the majority of his works might not appear until after his death. Meanwhile, readers
have become more favorably disposed toward Salinger’s later writings, meaning that The Catcher in the
Rye may one day be seen as part of a much larger literary whole.
The Catcher in the Rye is set around the 1950s and is narrated by a young man named Holden Caulfield.
Holden is not specific about his location while he’s telling the story, but he makes it clear that he is undergoing
treatment in a mental hospital or sanatorium. The events he narrates take place in the few days between the
end of the fall school term and Christmas, when Holden is sixteen years old.
Holden’s story begins on the Saturday following the end of classes at the Pencey prep school in Agerstown,
Pennsylvania. Pencey is Holden’s fourth school; he has already failed out of three others. At Pencey, he has
failed four out of five of his classes and has received notice that he is being expelled, but he is not scheduled to
return home to Manhattan until Wednesday. He visits his elderly history teacher, Spencer, to say goodbye, but
when Spencer tries to reprimand him for his poor academic performance, Holden becomes annoyed.
Back in the dormitory, Holden is further irritated by his unhygienic neighbor, Ackley, and by his own roommate,
Stradlater. Stradlater spends the evening on a date with Jane Gallagher, a girl whom Holden used to date and
whom he still admires. During the course of the evening, Holden grows increasingly nervous about Stradlater’s
taking Jane out, and when Stradlater returns, Holden questions him insistently about whether he tried to have
sex with her. Stradlater teases Holden, who flies into a rage and attacks Stradlater. Stradlater pins Holden
down and bloodies his nose. Holden decides that he’s had enough of Pencey and will go to Manhattan three
days early, stay in a hotel, and not tell his parents that he is back.
On the train to New York, Holden meets the mother of one of his fellow Pencey students. Though he thinks this
student is a complete “bastard,” he tells the woman madeup stories about how shy her son is and how well
respected he is at school. When he arrives at Penn Station, he goes into a phone booth and considers calling
several people, but for various reasons he decides against it. He gets in a cab and asks the cab driver where
the ducks in Central Park go when the lagoon freezes, but his question annoys the driver. Holden has the cab
driver take him to the Edmont Hotel, where he checks himself in.
From his room at the Edmont, Holden can see into the rooms of some of the guests in the opposite wing. He
observes a man putting on silk stockings, high heels, a bra, a corset, and an evening gown. He also sees a
man and a woman in another room taking turns spitting mouthfuls of their drinks into each other’s faces and
laughing hysterically. He interprets the couple’s behavior as a form of sexual play and is both upset and
aroused by it. After smoking a couple of cigarettes, he calls Faith Cavendish, a woman he has never met but
whose number he got from an acquaintance at Princeton. Holden thinks he remembers hearing that she used to
be a stripper, and he believes he can persuade her to have sex with him. He calls her, and though she is at first
annoyed to be called at such a late hour by a complete stranger, she eventually suggests that they meet the
next day. Holden doesn’t want to wait that long and winds up hanging up without arranging a meeting.
Holden goes downstairs to the Lavender Room and sits at a table, but the waiter realizes he’s a minor and
refuses to serve him. He flirts with three women in their thirties, who seem like they’re from out of town and are
mostly interested in catching a glimpse of a celebrity. Nevertheless, Holden dances with them and feels that he
is “half in love” with the blonde one after seeing how well she dances. After making some wisecracks about his
age, they leave, letting him pay their entire tab.
As Holden goes out to the lobby, he starts to think about Jane Gallagher and, in a flashback, recounts how he
got to know her. They met while spending a summer vacation in Maine, played golf and checkers, and held
hands at the movies. One afternoon, during a game of checkers, her stepfather came onto the porch where
they were playing, and when he left Jane began to cry. Holden had moved to sit beside her and kissed her all
over her face, but she wouldn’t let him kiss her on the mouth. That was the closest they came to “necking.”
Holden leaves the Edmont and takes a cab to Ernie’s jazz club in Greenwich Village. Again, he asks the cab
driver where the ducks in Central Park go in the winter, and this cabbie is even more irritable than the first one.
Holden sits alone at a table in Ernie’s and observes the other patrons with distaste. He runs into Lillian
Simmons, one of his older brother’s former girlfriends, who invites him to sit with her and her date. Holden says
he has to meet someone, leaves, and walks back to the Edmont.
Maurice, the elevator operator at the Edmont, offers to send a prostitute to Holden’s room for five dollars, and
Holden agrees. A young woman, identifying herself as “Sunny,” arrives at his door. She pulls off her dress, but
Holden starts to feel “peculiar” and tries to make conversation with her. He claims that he recently underwent a
spinal operation and isn’t sufficiently recovered to have sex with her, but he offers to pay her anyway. She sits
on his lap and talks dirty to him, but he insists on paying her five dollars and showing her the door. Sunny
returns with Maurice, who demands another five dollars from Holden. When Holden refuses to pay, Maurice
punches him in the stomach and leaves him on the floor, while Sunny takes five dollars from his wallet. Holden
goes to bed.
He wakes up at ten o’clock on Sunday and calls Sally Hayes, an attractive girl whom he has dated in the past.
They arrange to meet for a matinee showing of a Broadway play. He eats breakfast at a sandwich bar, where
he converses with two nuns about Romeo and Juliet. He gives the nuns ten dollars. He tries to telephone Jane
Gallagher, but her mother answers the phone, and he hangs up. He takes a cab to Central Park to look for his
younger sister, Phoebe, but she isn’t there. He helps one of Phoebe’s schoolmates tighten her skate, and the
girl tells him that Phoebe might be in the Museum of Natural History. Though he knows that Phoebe’s class
wouldn’t be at the museum on a Sunday, he goes there anyway, but when he gets there he decides not to go in
and instead takes a cab to the Biltmore Hotel to meet Sally.
Holden and Sally go to the play, and Holden is annoyed that Sally talks with a boy she knows from Andover
afterward. At Sally’s suggestion, they go to Radio City to ice skate. They both skate poorly and decide to get a
table instead. Holden tries to explain to Sally why he is unhappy at school, and actually urges her to run away
with him to Massachusetts or Vermont and live in a cabin. When she refuses, he calls her a “pain in the ass”
and laughs at her when she reacts angrily. She refuses to listen to his apologies and leaves.
Holden calls Jane again, but there is no answer. He calls Carl Luce, a young man who had been Holden’s
student advisor at the Whooton School and who is now a student at Columbia University. Luce arranges to
meet him for a drink after dinner, and Holden goes to a movie at Radio City to kill time. Holden and Luce meet
at the Wicker Bar in the Seton Hotel. At Whooton, Luce had spoken frankly with some of the boys about sex,
and Holden tries to draw him into a conversation about it once more. Luce grows irritated by Holden’s juvenile
remarks about homosexuals and about Luce’s Chinese girlfriend, and he makes an excuse to leave early.
Holden continues to drink Scotch and listen to the pianist and singer.
Quite drunk, Holden telephones Sally Hayes and babbles about their Christmas Eve plans. Then he goes to the
lagoon in Central Park, where he used to watch the ducks as a child. It takes him a long time to find it, and by
the time he does, he is freezing cold. He then decides to sneak into his own apartment building and wake his
sister, Phoebe. He is forced to admit to Phoebe that he was kicked out of school, which makes her mad at him.
When he tries to explain why he hates school, she accuses him of not liking anything. He tells her his fantasy
of being “the catcher in the rye,” a person who catches little children as they are about to fall off of a cliff.
Phoebe tells him that he has misremembered the poem that he took the image from: Robert Burns’s poem says
“if a body meet a body, coming through the rye,” not “catch a body.”
Holden calls his former English teacher, Mr. Antolini, who tells Holden he can come to his apartment. Mr.
Antolini asks Holden about his expulsion and tries to counsel him about his future. Holden can’t hide his
sleepiness, and Mr. Antolini puts him to bed on the couch. Holden awakens to find Mr. Antolini stroking his
forehead. Thinking that Mr. Antolini is making a homosexual overture, Holden hastily excuses himself and
leaves, sleeping for a few hours on a bench at Grand Central Station.
Holden goes to Phoebe’s school and sends her a note saying that he is leaving home for good and that she
should meet him at lunchtime at the museum. When Phoebe arrives, she is carrying a suitcase full of clothes,
and she asks Holden to take her with him. He refuses angrily, and she cries and then refuses to speak to him.
Knowing she will follow him, he walks to the zoo, and then takes her across the park to a carousel. He buys her
a ticket and watches her ride it. It starts to rain heavily, but Holden is so happy watching his sister ride the
carousel that he is close to tears.
Holden ends his narrative here, telling the reader that he is not going to tell the story of how he went home and
got “sick.” He plans to go to a new school in the fall and is cautiously optimistic about his future.
Character List:
Holden Caulfield The protagonist and narrator of the novel, Holden is a sixteenyearold junior who has just
been expelled for academic failure from a school called Pencey Prep. Although he is intelligent and sensitive,
Holden narrates in a cynical and jaded voice. He finds the hypocrisy and ugliness of the world around him
almost unbearable, and through his cynicism he tries to protect himself from the pain and disappointment of the
adult world. However, the criticisms that Holden aims at people around him are also aimed at himself. He is
uncomfortable with his own weaknesses, and at times displays as much phoniness, meanness, and
superficiality as anyone else in the book. As the novel opens, Holden stands poised on the cliff separating
childhood from adulthood. His inability to successfully negotiate the chasm leaves him on the verge of
emotional collapse.
Read an indepth analysis of Holden Caulfield.
Ackley Holden’s nextdoor neighbor in his dorm at Pencey Prep. Ackley is a pimply, insecure boy with terrible
dental hygiene. He often barges into Holden’s room and acts completely oblivious to Holden’s hints that he
should leave. Holden believes that Ackley makes up elaborate lies about his sexual experience.
Stradlater Holden’s roommate at Pencey Prep. Stradlater is handsome, selfsatisfied, and popular, but Holden
calls him a “secret slob,” because he appears well groomed, but his toiletries, such as his razor, are
disgustingly unclean. Stradlater is sexually active and quite experienced for a prep school student, which is why
Holden also calls him a “sexy bastard.”
Jane Gallagher A girl with whom Holden spent a lot of time one summer, when their families stayed in
neighboring summer houses in Maine. Jane never actually appears in The Catcher in the Rye, but she is
extremely important to Holden, because she is one of the few girls whom he both respects and finds attractive.
Phoebe Caulfield Phoebe is Holden’s tenyearold sister, whom he loves dearly. Although she is six years
younger than Holden, she listens to what he says and understands him more than most other people do.
Phoebe is intelligent, neat, and a wonderful dancer, and her childish innocence is one of Holden’s only
consistent sources of happiness throughout the novel. At times, she exhibits great maturity and even chastises
Holden for his immaturity. Like Mr. Antolini, Phoebe seems to recognize that Holden is his own worst enemy.
Read an indepth analysis of Phoebe Caulfield.
Allie Caulfield Holden’s younger brother. Allie dies of leukemia three years before the start of the novel. Allie
was a brilliant, friendly, redheaded boy—according to Holden, he was the smartest of the Caulfields. Holden is
tormented by Allie’s death and carries around a baseball glove on which Allie used to write poems in green ink.
D. B. Caulfield Holden’s older brother. D. B. wrote a volume of short stories that Holden admires very much,
but Holden feels that D. B. prostitutes his talents by writing for Hollywood movies.
Sally Hayes A very attractive girl whom Holden has known and dated for a long time. Though Sally is well
read, Holden claims that she is “stupid,” although it is difficult to tell whether this judgment is based in reality or
merely in Holden’s ambivalence about being sexually attracted to her. She is certainly more conventional than
Holden in her tastes and manners.
Mr. Spencer Holden’s history teacher at Pencey Prep, who unsuccessfully tries to shake Holden out of his
academic apathy.
Carl Luce A student at Columbia who was Holden’s student advisor at the Whooton School. Luce is three
years older than Holden and has a great deal of sexual experience. At Whooton, he was a source of knowledge
about sex for the younger boys, and Holden tries to get him to talk about sex at their meeting.
Mr. Antolini Holden’s former English teacher at the Elkton Hills School. Mr. Antolini now teaches at New York
University. He is young, clever, sympathetic, and likable, and Holden respects him. Holden sometimes finds him
a bit too clever, but he looks to him for guidance. Like many characters in the novel, he drinks heavily.
Read an indepth analysis of Mr. Antolini.
Maurice The elevator operator at the Edmont Hotel, who procures a prostitute for Holden.
Sunny The prostitute whom Holden hires through Maurice. She is one of a number of women in the book with
whom Holden clumsily attempts to connect.
Analysis of Major Characters
Holden Caulfield
The number of readers who have been able to identify with Holden and make him their hero is truly staggering.
Something about his discontent, and his vivid way of expressing it, makes him resonate powerfully with readers
who come from backgrounds completely different from his. It is tempting to inhabit his point of view and revel in
his cantankerousness rather than try to deduce what is wrong with him. The obvious signs that Holden is a
troubled and unreliable narrator are manifold: he fails out of four schools; he manifests complete apathy toward
his future; he is hospitalized, and visited by a psychoanalyst, for an unspecified complaint; and he is unable to
connect with other people. We know of two traumas in his past that clearly have something to do with his
emotional state: the death of his brother Allie and the suicide of one of his schoolmates. But, even with that
knowledge, Holden’s peculiarities cannot simply be explained away as symptoms of a readily identifiable
disorder.
The most noticeable of Holden’s “peculiarities” is how extremely judgmental he is of almost everything and
everybody. He criticizes and philosophizes about people who are boring, people who are insecure, and, above
all, people who are “phony.” Holden carries this penchant for passing judgment to such an extreme that it often
becomes extremely funny, such as when he speculates that people are so crass that someone will probably
write “fuck you” on his tombstone. Holden applies the term “phony” not to people who are insincere but to those
who are too conventional or too typical—for instance, teachers who “act like” teachers by assuming a different
demeanor in class than they do in conversation, or people who dress and act like the other members of their
social class. While Holden uses the label “phony” to imply that such people are superficial, his use of the term
actually indicates that his own perceptions of other people are superficial. In almost every case, he rejects more
complex judgments in favor of simple categorical ones.
A second facet of Holden’s personality that deserves comment is his attitude toward sex. Holden is a virgin, but
he is very interested in sex, and, in fact, he spends much of the novel trying to lose his virginity. He feels
strongly that sex should happen between people who care deeply about and respect one another, and he is
upset by the realization that sex can be casual. Stradlater’s date with Jane doesn’t just make him jealous; it
infuriates him to think of a girl he knows well having sex with a boy she doesn’t know well. Moreover, he is
disturbed by the fact that he is aroused by women whom he doesn’t respect or care for, like the blonde tourist
he dances with in the Lavender Room, or like Sally Hayes, whom he refers to as “stupid” even as he arranges a
date with her. Finally, he is disturbed by the fact that he is aroused by kinky sexual behavior—particularly
behavior that isn’t respectful of one’s sex partner, such as spitting in one’s partner’s face. Although Holden
refers to such behavior as “crumby,” he admits that it is pretty fun, although he doesn’t think that it should be.
A brief note about Holden’s name: a “caul” is a membrane that covers the head of a fetus during birth. Thus,
the caul in his name may symbolize the blindness of childhood or the inability of the child to see the complexity
of the adult world. Holden’s full name might be read as Holdon Caulfield: he wants to hold on to what he sees
as his innocence, which is really his blindness.
Phoebe Caulfield
Before we meet Phoebe, Holden’s side of the story is all we’ve been given. He implies that he is the only noble
character in a world of superficial and phony adults, and we must take him at his word. There seems to be a
simple dichotomy between the sweet world of childhood innocence, where Holden wants to stay, and the cruel
world of shallow adult hypocrisy, where he’s afraid to go. But Phoebe complicates his narrative. Instead of
sympathizing with Holden’s refusal to grow up, she becomes angry with him. Despite being six years younger
than her brother, Phoebe understands that growing up is a necessary process; she also understands that
Holden’s refusal to mature reveals less about the outside world than it does about himself. Next to Phoebe,
Holden’s stunted emotional maturity and stubborn outlook seem less charming and more foolish. Phoebe, then,
serves as a guide and surrogate for the audience. Because she knows her brother better than we do, we trust
her judgments about him. Our allegiance to the narrator weakens slightly once we hear her side of the story.
Phoebe makes Holden’s picture of childhood—of children romping through a field of rye—seem oversimplified,
an idealized fantasy. Phoebe’s character challenges Holden’s view of the world: she is a child, but she does not
fit into Holden’s romanticized vision of childlike innocence. Although she never explicitly states it, Phoebe
seems to realize that Holden’s bitterness toward the rest of the world is really bitterness toward himself. She
sees that he is a deeply sad, insecure young man who needs love and support. At the end of the book, when
she shows up at the museum and demands to come with him, she seems not so much to need Holden as to
understand that he needs her.
Mr. Antolini
Mr. Antolini is the adult who comes closest to reaching Holden. He manages to avoid alienating Holden, and
being labeled a “phony,” because he doesn’t behave conventionally. He doesn’t speak to Holden in the persona
of a teacher or an authority figure, as Mr. Spencer does. He doesn’t object to Holden’s calling him in the middle
of the night or to Holden’s being drunk or smoking. Moreover, by opening his door to Holden on the spur of the
moment, he shows no reservations about exposing his private self, with his messy apartment, his older wife
with her hair in curlers, and his own heavy drinking.
Mr. Antolini’s advice to Holden about why he should apply himself to his studies is also unconventional. He
recognizes that Holden is different from other students, and he validates Holden’s suffering and confusion by
suggesting that one day they may be worth writing about. He represents education not as a path of conformity
but as a means for Holden to develop his unique voice and to find the ideas that are most appropriate to him.
When Mr. Antolini touches Holden’s forehead as he sleeps, he may overstep a boundary in his display of
concern and affection. However, there is little evidence to suggest that he is making a sexual overture, as
Holden thinks, and much evidence that Holden misinterprets his action. Holden indicates in Chapter 19 that he
is extremely nervous around possible homosexuals and that he worries about suddenly becoming one. We also
know that he has been thinking about sex constantly since leaving Pencey. Finally, this is not the only scene in
which Holden recoils from a physical approach. He is made very uncomfortable when Sunny pulls off her dress
and sits in his lap. Even when his beloved sister puts her arms around him, he remarks that she may be a little
too affectionate sometimes.
Holden regrets his hasty judgment of Mr. Antolini, but this mistake is very important to him, because he finally
starts to question his own practice of making snap judgments about people. Holden realizes that even if Mr.
Antolini is gay, he can’t simply be dismissed as a “flit,” since he has also been kind and generous. Holden
begins to acknowledge that Mr. Antolini is complex and that he has feelings.
hemes, Motifs & Symbols
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
Alienation as a Form of SelfProtection
Throughout the novel, Holden seems to be excluded from and victimized by the world around him. As he says
to Mr. Spencer, he feels trapped on “the other side” of life, and he continually attempts to find his way in a world
in which he feels he doesn’t belong.
As the novel progresses, we begin to perceive that Holden’s alienation is his way of protecting himself. Just as
he wears his hunting hat (see “Symbols,” below) to advertise his uniqueness, he uses his isolation as proof that
he is better than everyone else around him and therefore above interacting with them. The truth is that
interactions with other people usually confuse and overwhelm him, and his cynical sense of superiority serves
as a type of selfprotection. Thus, Holden’s alienation is the source of what little stability he has in his life.
As readers, we can see that Holden’s alienation is the cause of most of his pain. He never addresses his own
emotions directly, nor does he attempt to discover the source of his troubles. He desperately needs human
contact and love, but his protective wall of bitterness prevents him from looking for such interaction. Alienation
is both the source of Holden’s strength and the source of his problems. For example, his loneliness propels him
into his date with Sally Hayes, but his need for isolation causes him to insult her and drive her away. Similarly,
he longs for the meaningful connection he once had with Jane Gallagher, but he is too frightened to make any
real effort to contact her. He depends upon his alienation, but it destroys him.
The Painfulness of Growing Up
According to most analyses, The Catcher in the Rye is a bildungsroman, a novel about a young character’s
growth into maturity. While it is appropriate to discuss the novel in such terms, Holden Caulfield is an unusual
protagonist for a bildungsroman because his central goal is to resist the process of maturity itself. As his
thoughts about the Museum of Natural History demonstrate, Holden fears change and is overwhelmed by
complexity. He wants everything to be easily understandable and eternally fixed, like the statues of Eskimos
and Indians in the museum. He is frightened because he is guilty of the sins he criticizes in others, and
because he can’t understand everything around him. But he refuses to acknowledge this fear, expressing it only
in a few instances—for example, when he talks about sex and admits that “[s]ex is something I just don’t
understand. I swear to God I don’t” (Chapter 9).
Instead of acknowledging that adulthood scares and mystifies him, Holden invents a fantasy that adulthood is a
world of superficiality and hypocrisy (“phoniness”), while childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity, and
honesty. Nothing reveals his image of these two worlds better than his fantasy about the catcher in the rye: he
imagines childhood as an idyllic field of rye in which children romp and play; adulthood, for the children of this
world, is equivalent to death—a fatal fall over the edge of a cliff. His created understandings of childhood and
adulthood allow Holden to cut himself off from the world by covering himself with a protective armor of cynicism.
But as the book progresses, Holden’s experiences, particularly his encounters with Mr. Antolini and Phoebe,
reveal the shallowness of his conceptions.
The Phoniness of the Adult World
“Phoniness,” which is probably the most famous phrase from The Catcher in the Rye, is one of Holden’s
favorite concepts. It is his catchall for describing the superficiality, hypocrisy, pretension, and shallowness that
he encounters in the world around him. In Chapter 22, just before he reveals his fantasy of the catcher in the
rye, Holden explains that adults are inevitably phonies, and, what’s worse, they can’t see their own phoniness.
Phoniness, for Holden, stands as an emblem of everything that’s wrong in the world around him and provides
an excuse for him to withdraw into his cynical isolation.
Though oversimplified, Holden’s observations are not entirely inaccurate. He can be a highly insightful narrator,
and he is very aware of superficial behavior in those around him. Throughout the novel he encounters many
characters who do seem affected, pretentious, or superficial—Sally Hayes, Carl Luce, Maurice and Sunny, and
even Mr. Spencer stand out as examples. Some characters, like Maurice and Sunny, are genuinely harmful. But
although Holden expends so much energy searching for phoniness in others, he never directly observes his
own phoniness. His deceptions are generally pointless and cruel and he notes that he is a compulsive liar. For
example, on the train to New York, he perpetrates a meanspirited and needless prank on Mrs. Morrow. He’d
like us to believe that he is a paragon of virtue in a world of phoniness, but that simply isn’t the case. Although
he’d like to believe that the world is a simple place, and that virtue and innocence rest on one side of the fence
while superficiality and phoniness rest on the other, Holden is his own counterevidence. The world is not as
simple as he’d like—and needs—it to be; even he cannot adhere to the same blackandwhite standards with
which he judges other people.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s
major themes.
Loneliness
Holden’s loneliness, a more concrete manifestation of his alienation problem, is a driving force throughout the
book. Most of the novel describes his almost manic quest for companionship as he flits from one meaningless
encounter to another. Yet, while his behavior indicates his loneliness, Holden consistently shies away from
introspection and thus doesn’t really know why he keeps behaving as he does. Because Holden depends on
his isolation to preserve his detachment from the world and to maintain a level of selfprotection, he often
sabotages his own attempts to end his loneliness. For example, his conversation with Carl Luce and his date
with Sally Hayes are made unbearable by his rude behavior. His calls to Jane Gallagher are aborted for a
similar reason: to protect his precious and fragile sense of individuality. Loneliness is the emotional
manifestation of the alienation Holden experiences; it is both a source of great pain and a source of his security.
Relationships, Intimacy, and Sexuality
Relationships, intimacy, and sexuality are also recurring motifs relating to the larger theme of alienation. Both
physical and emotional relationships offer Holden opportunity to break out of his isolated shell. They also
represent what he fears most about the adult world: complexity, unpredictability, and potential for conflict and
change. As he demonstrates at the Museum of Natural History, Holden likes the world to be silent and frozen,
predictable and unchanging. As he watches Phoebe sleep, Holden projects his own idealizations of childhood
onto her. But in realworld relationships, people talk back, and Phoebe reveals how different her childhood is
from Holden’s romanticized notion. Because people are unpredictable, they challenge Holden and force him to
question his senses of selfconfidence and selfworth. For intricate and unspoken reasons, seemingly stemming
from Allie’s death, Holden has trouble dealing with this kind of complexity. As a result, he has isolated himself
and fears intimacy. Although he encounters opportunities for both physical and emotional intimacy, he bungles
them all, wrapping himself in a psychological armor of critical cynicism and bitterness. Even so, Holden
desperately continues searching for new relationships, always undoing himself only at the last moment.
Lying and Deception
Lying and deception are the most obvious and hurtful elements of the larger category of phoniness. Holden’s
definition of phoniness relies mostly on a kind of selfdeception: he seems to reserve the most scorn for people
who think that they are something they are not or who refuse to acknowledge their own weaknesses. But lying
to others is also a kind of phoniness, a type of deception that indicates insensitivity, callousness, or even
cruelty. Of course, Holden himself is guilty of both these crimes. His random and repeated lying highlights his
own selfdeception—he refuses to acknowledge his own shortcomings and is unwilling to consider how his
behavior affects those around him. Through his lying and deception, Holden proves that he is just as guilty of
phoniness as the people he criticizes.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
The “Catcher in the Rye”
As the source of the book’s title, this symbol merits close inspection. It first appears in Chapter 16, when a kid
Holden admires for walking in the street rather than on the sidewalk is singing the Robert Burns song “Comin’
Thro’ the Rye.” In Chapter 22, when Phoebe asks Holden what he wants to do with his life, he replies with his
image, from the song, of a “catcher in the rye.” Holden imagines a field of rye perched high on a cliff, full of
children romping and playing. He says he would like to protect the children from falling off the edge of the cliff
by “catching” them if they were on the verge of tumbling over. As Phoebe points out, Holden has misheard the
lyric. He thinks the line is “If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye,” but the actual lyric is “If a body meet
a body, coming through the rye.”
The song “Comin’ Thro’ the Rye” asks if it is wrong for two people to have a romantic encounter out in the
fields, away from the public eye, even if they don’t plan to have a commitment to one another. It is highly ironic
that the word “meet” refers to an encounter that leads to recreational sex, because the word that Holden
substitutes—“catch”—takes on the exact opposite meaning in his mind. Holden wants to catch children before
they fall out of innocence into knowledge of the adult world, including knowledge of sex.
Holden’s Red Hunting Hat
The red hunting hat is one of the most recognizable symbols from twentiethcentury American literature. It is
inseparable from our image of Holden, with good reason: it is a symbol of his uniqueness and individuality. The
hat is outlandish, and it shows that Holden desires to be different from everyone around him. At the same time,
he is very selfconscious about the hat—he always mentions when he is wearing it, and he often doesn’t wear it
if he is going to be around people he knows. The presence of the hat, therefore, mirrors the central conflict in
the book: Holden’s need for isolation versus his need for companionship.
It is worth noting that the hat’s color, red, is the same as that of Allie’s and Phoebe’s hair. Perhaps Holden
associates it with the innocence and purity he believes these characters represent and wears it as a way to
connect to them. He never explicitly comments on the hat’s significance other than to mention its unusual
appearance.
The Museum of Natural History
Holden tells us the symbolic meaning of the museum’s displays: they appeal to him because they are frozen
and unchanging. He also mentions that he is troubled by the fact that he has changed every time he returns to
them. The museum represents the world Holden wishes he could live in: it’s the world of his “catcher in the rye”
fantasy, a world where nothing ever changes, where everything is simple, understandable, and infinite. Holden
is terrified by the unpredictable challenges of the world—he hates conflict, he is confused by Allie’s senseless
death, and he fears interaction with other people.
The Ducks in the Central Park Lagoon
Holden’s curiosity about where the ducks go during the winter reveals a genuine, more youthful side to his
character. For most of the book, he sounds like a grumpy old man who is angry at the world, but his search for
the ducks represents the curiosity of youth and a joyful willingness to encounter the mysteries of the world. It is
a memorable moment, because Holden clearly lacks such willingness in other aspects of his life.
The ducks and their pond are symbolic in several ways. Their mysterious perseverance in the face of an
inhospitable environment resonates with Holden’s understanding of his own situation. In addition, the ducks
prove that some vanishings are only temporary. Traumatized and made acutely aware of the fragility of life by
his brother Allie’s death, Holden is terrified by the idea of change and disappearance. The ducks vanish every
winter, but they return every spring, thus symbolizing change that isn’t permanent, but cyclical. Finally, the pond
itself becomes a minor metaphor for the world as Holden sees it, because it is “partly frozen and partly not
frozen.” The pond is in transition between two states, just as Holden is in transition between childhood and
adulthood.
Chapters 1–2
Summary: Chapter 1
Holden Caulfield writes his story from a rest home to which he has been sent for therapy. He refuses to talk
about his early life, mentioning only that his brother D. B. is a Hollywood writer. He hints that he is bitter
because D. B. has sold out to Hollywood, forsaking a career in serious literature for the wealth and fame of the
movies. He then begins to tell the story of his breakdown, beginning with his departure from Pencey Prep, a
famous school he attended in Agerstown, Pennsylvania.
Holden’s career at Pencey Prep has been marred by his refusal to apply himself, and after failing four of his five
subjects—he passed only English—he has been forbidden to return to the school after the fall term. The
Saturday before Christmas vacation begins, Holden stands on Thomsen Hill overlooking the football field,
where Pencey plays its annual grudge match against Saxon Hall. Holden has no interest in the game and
hadn’t planned to watch it at all. He is the manager of the school’s fencing team and is supposed to be in New
York for a meet, but he lost the team’s equipment on the subway, forcing everyone to return early.
Holden is full of contempt for the prep school, but he looks for a way to “say goodbye” to it. He fondly
remembers throwing a football with friends even after it grew dark outside. Holden walks away from the game
to go say goodbye to Mr. Spencer, a former history teacher who is very old and ill with the flu. He sprints to
Spencer’s house, but since he is a heavy smoker, he has to stop to catch his breath at the main gate. At the
door, Spencer’s wife greets Holden warmly, and he goes in to see his teacher.
Summary: Chapter 2
“Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.”
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Holden greets Mr. Spencer and his wife in a manner that suggests he is close to them. He is put off by his
teacher’s rather decrepit condition but seems otherwise to respect him. In his sickroom, Spencer tries to lecture
Holden about his academic failures. He confirms Pencey’s headmaster’s assertion that “[l]ife is a game” and
tells Holden that he must learn to play by the rules. Although Spencer clearly feels affection for Holden, he
bluntly reminds the boy that he flunked him, and even forces him to listen to the terrible essay he handed in
about the ancient Egyptians. Finally, Spencer tries to convince Holden to think about his future. Not wanting to
be lectured, Holden interrupts Spencer and leaves, returning to his dorm room before dinner.
Analysis: Chapters 1–2
Holden Caulfield is the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye, and the most important function of these early
chapters is to establish the basics of his personality. From the beginning of the novel, Holden tells his story in a
bitterly cynical voice. He refuses to discuss his early life, he says, because he is bored by “all that David
Copperfield kind of crap.” He gives us a hint that something catastrophic has happened in his life,
acknowledging that he writes from a rest home to tell about “this madman stuff” that happened to him around
the previous Christmas, but he doesn’t yet go into specifics. The particularities of his story are in keeping with
his cynicism and his boredom. He has failed out of school, and he leaves Spencer’s house abruptly because he
does not enjoy being confronted by his actions.
Beneath the surface of Holden’s tone and behavior runs a more idealistic, emotional current. He begins the
story of his last day at Pencey Prep by telling how he stood at the top of Thomsen Hill, preparing to leave the
school and trying to feel “some kind of a goodby.” He visits Spencer in Chapter 2 even though he failed
Spencer’s history class, and he seems to respond to Mrs. Spencer’s kindness. What bothers him the most, in
these chapters and throughout the book, is the hypocrisy and ugliness around him, which diminish the
innocence and beauty of the external world—the unpleasantness of Spencer’s sickroom, for instance, and his
hairless legs sticking out of his pajamas. Salinger thus treats his narrator as more than a mere portrait of a
cynical postwar rich kid at an impersonal and pressurefilled boarding school. Even in these early chapters,
Holden connects with life on a very idealistic level; he seems to feel its flaws so deeply that he tries to shield
himself with a veneer of cynicism. The Catcher in the Rye is in many ways a book about the betrayal of
innocence by the modern world; despite his bitter tone, Holden is an innocent searching desperately for a way
to connect with the world around him that will not cause him pain. In these early chapters, the reader already
begins to sense that Holden is not an entirely reliable narrator and that the reality of his situation is somehow
different from the way he describes it. In part this is simply because Holden is a firstperson narrator describing
his own experiences from his own point of view. Any individual’s point of view, in any novel or story, is
necessarily limited. The reader never forgets for a moment who is telling this story, because the tone, grammar,
and diction are consistently those of an adolescent—albeit a highly intelligent and expressive one—and every
event receives Holden’s distinctive commentary. However, Holden’s narrative contains inconsistencies that
make us question what he says. For instance, Holden characterizes Spencer’s behavior throughout as
vindictive and meanspirited, but Spencer’s actions clearly seem to be motivated by concern for Holden’s
wellbeing. Holden seems to be looking for reasons not to listen to Spencer.
Chapters 3–4
Summary: Chapter 3
“This is a people shooting hat,” I said. “I shoot people in this hat.”
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Holden lives in Ossenburger Hall, which is named after a wealthy Pencey graduate who made a fortune in the
discount funeral home business. In his room, Holden sits and reads Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa while wearing
his new hunting hat, a flamboyant red cap with a long peaked brim and earflaps. He is interrupted by Ackley, a
pimply student who lives next door. According to Holden, Ackley is a supremely irritating classmate who
constantly barges into the room, exhibits disgusting personal habits and poor hygiene, and always acts as if
he’s doing others a favor by spending time with them. Ackley does not seem to have many friends. He prevents
Holden from reading by puttering around the room and pestering him with annoying questions. Ackley further
aggravates Holden by cutting his fingernails on the floor, despite Holden’s repeated requests that he stop. He
refuses to take Holden’s hints that he ought to leave. When Holden’s handsome and popular roommate,
Stradlater, enters, Ackley, who hates Stradlater, quickly returns to his own room. Stradlater mentions that he
has a date waiting for him but wants to shave.
Summary: Chapter 4
Holden goes to the bathroom with Stradlater and talks to him while he shaves. Holden contrasts Stradlater’s
personal habits with Ackley’s: whereas Ackley is ugly and has poor dental hygiene, Stradlater is outwardly
attractive but does not keep his razor or other toiletries clean. He decides that while Ackley is an obvious slob,
Stradlater is a “secret slob.” The two joke around, then Stradlater asks Holden to write an English composition
for him, because his date won’t leave him with time to do it on his own. Holden asks about the date and learns
that Stradlater is taking out a girl Holden knows, Jane Gallagher. (Stradlater carelessly calls her “Jean.”) Holden
clearly has strong feelings for Jane and remembers her vividly. He tells Stradlater that when she played
checkers, she used to keep all of her kings in the back row because she liked the way they looked there.
Stradlater is uninterested. Holden is displeased that Stradlater, one of the few sexually experienced boys at
Pencey, is taking Jane on a date. He wants to say hello to her while she waits for Stradlater, but decides he
isn’t in the mood. Before he leaves for his date, Stradlater borrows Holden’s hound’stooth jacket.
After Stradlater leaves, Holden is tormented by thoughts of Jane and Stradlater. Ackley barges in again and sits
in Holden’s room, squeezing pimples until dinnertime.
Analysis: Chapters 3–4
These chapters establish the way Holden interacts with his peers. Holden despises “phonies”—people whose
surface behavior distorts or disguises their inner feelings. Even his brother D. B. incurs his displeasure by
accepting a big paycheck to write for the movies; Holden considers the movies to be the phoniest of the phony
and emphasizes throughout the book the loathing he has for Hollywood.
Unfortunately, Holden is surrounded by phonies in his circa prep school. Preening Ackley and selfabsorbed
Stradlater act as his immediate contrasts. But, despite their flaws, he acts with basic kindness toward them,
agreeing to write Stradlater’s English composition for him in Chapter 4, even though Stradlater is out with Jane
Gallagher, a girl Holden seems to care for very deeply. The pressure of adolescent sexuality—an important
theme throughout The Catcher in the Rye—makes itself felt here for the first time: Holden’s greatest worry is
that Stradlater will make sexual advances toward Jane.
Stradlater and Ackley sound like appallingly unsympathetic characters, but this is completely the result of the
tone in which Holden describes them. For instance, Holden indicates his awareness that Ackley behaves in
annoying ways because he is insecure and unpopular, but instead of trying to imagine what Ackley wants or
why he does things, he focuses on Ackley’s surface—literally, his skin. By describing in minute detail Ackley’s
nail trimming and pimple squeezing, Holden makes him seem disgusting and subhuman.
Holden’s interactions also reveal how lonely he is. He describes Ackley as isolated and ostracized, but it’s easy
to see the parallel between Ackley’s and Holden’s situations. Holden notes that he and Ackley are the only two
guys not at the football game. Both are isolated, and both maintain a bitter, critical exterior in order to shield
themselves from the world that assaults them. In Ackley especially, we can see the cruelty of the situation.
Ackley’s isolation is perpetuated by his annoying habits, but his annoying habits protect him from the dangers of
interaction and intimacy. Ackley’s situation greatly illuminates Holden’s own inner landscape: intimacy and
interaction are what he needs and fears most.
Holden’s new hunting hat, with its funny earflaps, becomes very important to him. Throughout the novel, it
serves as a kind of protective device, which Holden uses for more than physical warmth and comfort. When he
wears the hat, he always claims not to care what people think about his appearance, which might be a source
of selfconscious embarrassment for Holden—he is extremely tall for his age, very thin, and, though he is only
sixteen, has a great deal of gray hair. But it is also important to note when Holden does not wear the hat. Part
of him seems to want to display his rebelliousness, but another part of him wants to fit in—or, at least, to hide
his unique personality. Although he mentions the freezing temperature, Holden does not wear the hat near the
football game or at Spencer’s house; he waits for the privacy of his own room to put it on.
Chapters 5–6
Summary: Chapter 5
After a dry and unappetizing steak dinner in the dining hall, Holden gets into a snowball fight with some of the
other Pencey boys. He and his friend Mal Brossard decide to take a bus into Agerstown to see a
movie—though Holden hates movies—and Holden convinces Mal to let Ackley go with them. As it turns out,
Ackley and Brossard have already seen the film, so the trio simply eats some burgers, plays a little pinball, and
heads back to Pencey.
After the excursion, Mal goes off to look for a bridge game, and Ackley sits on Holden’s bed squeezing pimples
and concocting stories about a girl he claims to have had sex with the summer before. Holden finally gets him
to leave by beginning to work on the English assignment for Stradlater. Stradlater had said the composition was
supposed to be a simple description of a room, a house, or something similarly straightforward. But Holden
cannot think of anything to say about a house or a room, so he writes about a baseball glove that his brother
Allie used to copy poems onto in green ink.
Several years before, Allie died of leukemia. Though he was two years younger than Holden, Holden says that
Allie was the most intelligent member of his family. He also says that Allie was an incredibly nice, innocent
child. Holden clearly still feels Allie’s loss strongly. He gives a brief description of Allie, mentioning his bright red
hair. He also recounts that the night Allie died, he slept in the garage and broke all the windows with his bare
hands. After he finishes the composition for Stradlater, he stares out the window and listens to Ackley snore in
the next room.
Summary: Chapter 6
Home from his date, Stradlater barges into the room. He reads Holden’s composition and becomes visibly
annoyed, asserting that it has nothing to do with the assignment and that it’s no wonder Holden is being
expelled. Holden tears the composition up and throws it away angrily. Afterward, he smokes a cigarette in the
room just to annoy Stradlater. The tension between the two increases when Holden asks Stradlater about his
date with Jane. When Stradlater nonchalantly refuses to tell Holden any of the details, Holden attacks him, but
Stradlater pins him to the floor and tries to get him to calm down. Holden relentlessly insults Stradlater, driving
him crazy until he punches Holden and bloodies his nose. Stradlater then becomes worried that he has hurt
Holden and will get into trouble. Holden insults him some more, and Stradlater finally leaves the room. Holden
gets up and goes into Ackley’s room, his face covered in blood.
Analysis: Chapters 5–6
Holden’s kindness to Ackley in Chapter 5 comes as a surprise after the disdain that Holden has displayed for
him in the previous two chapters. Though he continues to complain about Ackley, the sympathy he feels for his
nextdoor neighbor is evident when he convinces Mal Brossard to let Ackley join them at the movies. Equally
surprising is Holden’s willingness to go to the movies after his diatribes against their superficiality. Holden’s
actions are inconsistent with his opinions, but instead of making him seem like a hypocrite, this makes him
more likable: he is kind to Ackley without commenting on it, and he shows himself capable of going to the
movies with his friends like a normal teenager.
The most important revelation in these chapters comes about when Holden writes the composition for
Stradlater, divulging that his brother Allie died of leukemia several years before. Holden idealizes Allie, praising
his intelligence and sensitivity—the poemcovered baseball glove is a perfect emblem for both—but remaining
silent about his emotional reaction to Allie’s death. He alludes to his behavior almost in passing, saying that he
slept in the garage on the night of Allie’s death and broke all the windows with his bare hands, “just for the hell
of it.” He tried to break the car windows as well, but could not because his hand was already fractured from
smashing the garage windows. Throughout the novel, it becomes increasingly clear that Allie’s death was one
of the most traumatic experiences of Holden’s life and may play a major role in his current psychological
breakdown. Indeed, the cynicism that Holden uses to avoid expressing his feelings may result from Allie’s
death.
Holden seems to feel increasing pressure as he moves toward leaving school, and Salinger manipulates the
details of Holden’s physical environment to match his protagonist’s feelings. Holden cannot get a moment
alone; Ackley continues to barge in with his madeup sex stories, and when Holden writes the very personal
composition about his brother Allie, Stradlater criticizes it and then taunts Holden about Jane. When Holden
finally snaps and attacks his roommate, Stradlater easily overpowers him, and when he tries to seek refuge in
Ackley’s room, Ackley is so unpleasant that Holden cannot relax. He leaves abruptly, as though trying to
escape the torment of his environment. What Holden does not yet realize, however, is that he carries his
torment with him, inside himself.
Chapters 7–9
Summary: Chapter 7
Holden talks for a while with Ackley and then tries to fall asleep in the bed belonging to Ackley’s roommate,
who is away for the weekend. But he cannot stop imagining Jane fooling around with Stradlater, and he has
trouble falling asleep. He wakes Ackley and talks with him some more, asking whether he could run off and join
a monastery without being Catholic. Ackley is annoyed by the conversation, and Holden is annoyed by Ackley’s
“phoniness,” so he leaves. Outside, in the dorm’s hallway, he decides that he will leave for New York that night
instead of waiting until Wednesday. After passing a few days there in secret, he will wait until his parents have
digested the news of his expulsion before he returns to their apartment. He packs his bags, dons his hunting
hat, and begins to cry. As he heads into the hallway, he yells “Sleep tight, ya morons!” to the boys on his floor
before stepping outside to leave Pencey forever.
Summary: Chapter 8
Holden walks the entire way to the train station and catches a late train to New York. At Trenton, an attractive
older woman gets on and sits next to him. She turns out to be the mother of his classmate, Ernest Morrow. He
dislikes Ernest immensely but tells extravagant lies about him to his mother, claiming that he is the most
popular boy on campus and would have been elected class president if he’d let the other boys nominate him.
Holden tells her his own name is Rudolph Schmidt, which is actually the school janitor’s name. When she asks
why he is leaving Pencey early, Holden claims to be returning to New York for a brain tumor operation.
Summary: Chapter 9
At Penn Station, Holden wants to call someone but cannot think of anyone to call—his brother, D. B., is in
Hollywood; his sister, Phoebe, is young and probably asleep; he doesn’t feel like calling Jane Gallagher; and
another girl, Sally Hayes, has a mother who hates him. So, Holden takes a cab to the Edmont Hotel. He tries to
make conversation with the driver, asking him where the ducks in the Central Park lagoon go in the winter, but
the driver is uninterested. In his room at the Edmont, he looks out across the hotel courtyard into the lighted
windows on the other side and discovers a variety of bizarre acts taking place. One man dresses in women’s
clothing, and in another room a man and a woman take turns spitting mouthfuls of their drinks into each other’s
face. Holden begins to feel aroused, so he calls Faith Cavendish, a promiscuous girl recommended to him by a
boy he met at a party, and tries to make a date with her. She refuses, claiming she needs her beauty sleep. She
offers to meet him the next day, but he doesn’t want to wait that long, and he hangs up without arranging to
meet her.
Analysis: Chapters 7–9
The Catcher in the Rye is a chronicle of Holden Caulfield’s emotional breakdown, but Holden never comments
on it directly. At no point in the story does he say that he is undergoing an emotional strain; he simply describes
his increasingly desperate behavior without much explanation. Salinger cleverly manipulates Holden’s narrative
to signal to the reader that there is more to the story than what Holden admits or describes. In the previous
sections, Holden exhibited a number of behaviors that might indicate a troubled mind: running through the snow
to Spencer’s house, writing Stradlater’s English composition about Allie’s baseball glove, attacking Stradlater
for joking about Jane, leaving his dorm forever in the middle of the night, and yelling an insult down the hallway
on his way out. In this section, Holden’s frantic loneliness and constant lying further the implication that he is
not well mentally or emotionally.
As soon as he gets off the train in New York in Chapter 9, Holden wants to call someone and seems especially
to want to call Jane, but he is apparently too nervous (he suspiciously claims not to “feel like it” and runs
through a long list of people he could contact instead). This seems particularly strange given Holden’s cynicism
and evident dislike for most people; in Chapter 8, for instance, he describes enjoying the solitude of latenight
train rides. His desire for human contact becomes even more intense as the section progresses: he begins to
feel sexually aroused and tries to make a date with a stranger whose number he was given at a party, then
goes to a nightclub to flirt with older women. Holden’s constant lying, in this section and throughout the novel, is
a mark of immaturity and imbalance. As soon as he meets Mrs. Morrow on the train, Holden begins telling
ridiculous lies, claiming to be named Rudolph Schmidt and to be going to New York for a brain tumor operation.
He feels guilty for lying, but the only way he can stop is to stop talking altogether. There is no particular rhyme
or reason for the lies he tells Mrs. Morrow—his intentions toward her may be kind, or cruel, or simply careless.
What does seem clear is that he lies to deflect attention from himself and what he is doing.
In his reactions to the other guests in the hotel, whom he refers to as “perverts,” Holden reveals a great deal
about his attitudes toward sex and toward what makes him uncomfortable about sexuality. He admits that he is
aroused by the idea of spitting in someone’s face and that the couple across the courtyard seems to be having
fun. But he thinks that people should only have sex if they care deeply for one another, and “crumby” behavior
such as this seems disrespectful. What bothers him is his perception that sexual attraction can be separate
from respect and intimacy, and that sex can be casual or kinky. He knows this from his own experience with a
former girlfriend, from observing Stradlater’s mating habits, and from watching his new neighbors. As he tells
his story, Holden never seems particularly concerned about his own behavior or that of those around him. He
often seems angry, but he rarely discusses his feelings. By combining what we know about Holden from his
narration with his actions in the story, we can piece together the desperation, the pressure, and the trauma he
endures during this difficult time in his life.
Chapters 10–12
Summary: Chapter 10
Still feeling restless, Holden changes his shirt and goes downstairs to the Lavender Room, the Edmont’s
nightclub. Before he leaves his room, he thinks again about calling his little sister, Phoebe. Referring to her as
“old Phoebe,” he gives a description of her character that is remarkably similar to the description he gave of
Allie in Chapter 5. Like Allie, she has red hair and is unusually intelligent for her age. He recalls the time he and
Phoebe went to see Hitchcock’s The Steps (despite his professed loathing for the cinema, he has clearly seen
many movies and has strong opinions about them). He notes Phoebe’s humor and cleverness, and mentions
that she writes neverending fictional stories that feature a character named “Hazle” Weatherfield. According to
Holden, Phoebe’s one flaw is that she is perhaps too emotional.
In the Lavender Room, Holden takes a table and tries to order a cocktail. He explains that due to his height and
his gray hair, he is often able to order alcohol, but, in this case, the waiter refuses. He flirts and dances with
three women who are visiting from Seattle. They seem amused but uninterested in this obviously young man
who tries to appear older and debonair. After tolerating him for a while, they begin to laugh at him; they also
depress him by being obsessed with movie stars. When Holden lies to one of them about having just seen Gary
Cooper, she tells the other two that she caught a glimpse of Gary Cooper as well. Holden pays for their drinks,
then leaves the Lavender Room.
Summary: Chapter 11
As he walks out to the lobby, Holden reminisces about Jane. Their families’ summer homes in Maine were next
door to one another, and he met her after his mother confronted her mother about a Doberman pinscher that
frequently relieved itself on the Caulfields’ lawn. Holden and Jane became close—Jane was the only person to
whom Holden ever showed Allie’s baseball glove. One day, Jane’s alcoholic stepfather came out to the porch
where Holden and Jane were playing checkers and asked Jane for cigarettes; Jane refused to answer him,
and, when he left, she began to cry. Holden held her, kissing her face and comforting her. Apart from that
incident, their physical relationship was mild, but they used to hold hands constantly. When you held Jane’s
hand, Holden reminisces, “all you knew was, you were happy. You really were.” Holden then feels suddenly
upset, and he returns to his room. He notices that the lights in the “perverts’” rooms are out. He is still wide
awake, so he heads downstairs and grabs a taxi.
Summary: Chapter 12
Holden takes a cab to a Greenwich Village nightclub called Ernie’s, a spot he used to frequent with D. B. His
cab driver is named Horwitz, and Holden takes a liking to him. But when Holden tries to ask him about the
ducks in the Central Park lagoon, Horwitz unexpectedly becomes angry. At Ernie’s, Holden listens to Ernie play
the piano but is unimpressed. He takes a table, drinks Scotch and soda, and listens to the conversations
around him, which he finds depressing and phony. He encounters an obnoxious girl named Lillian Simmons,
whom D. B. used to date, and is forced to leave the nightclub to get away from her.
Analysis: Chapters 10–12
By this point in the novel, it’s clear that loneliness is at the heart of Holden’s problems. When he arrives in New
York, it is already quite late in the evening, but he embarks on an almost manic quest for interaction. His call to
Faith Cavendish in Chapter 9 hinted at Holden’s desperation—calling a girl you’ve never met in the middle of
the night is not quite normal—but here we see the depth of Holden’s feelings of loneliness and alienation.
Despite his independent nature, Holden demonstrates how badly he needs companionship. In these chapters
especially, his thoughts are always of other people. He thinks about Phoebe, he repeatedly remembers Jane,
and he mentally ridicules the people at surrounding tables. But Holden never mentions himself. He avoids
introspection and reflection on his own shortcomings and problems by focusing on the world around him,
usually through a dismissive and critical lens. His focus on other people reveals the extent to which he longs for
companionship, love, and compassionate interaction to help him through a difficult period in his life.
Through his nostalgic memories of Jane, we gain insight into the type of companionship Holden wants. He
mentions that he knew he was happy when he was with Jane—this is a certitude that he is lacking at the
present moment. His memories of Jane are especially touching because he describes a very deep emotional
connection. Additionally, their moments of intimacy were subtle and extremely personal, free of any sort of
posturing or phoniness.
The key moment of Jane and Holden’s relationship bears a curious resemblance to Holden’s present situation.
After her stepfather’s intrusion, Jane is overwhelmed by a pain she cannot articulate, a deep sadness that she
cannot put into words. Holden, full of silent compassion and understanding, knows what to do to help her
through hard times. Now, he finds himself in a similar situation, struggling with a pain that he can’t talk about
with anyone in the book, including the reader. He desperately needs the same deep, compassionate connection
he says he once experienced with Jane.
Holden’s selfdelusion and unreliability as a narrator continue to grow. When he enters the Lavender Room, he
depicts himself as a wisebeyondhisyears, debonair playboy. But because the waiter refuses to serve him
alcohol, and because the girls laugh at his advances, we doubt that Holden’s selfdescription is accurate.
Holden rationalizes the girls’ dismissal of him by saying that they are silly tourist hicks. Although there does
seem to be a bit of provincialism in their character, it’s fairly clear that the girls are amused by the situation and
that they indulge Holden in his flirtation out of pity combined with a touch of mockery. Holden likes to imagine
that he is a mature individual who perceptively sees all the hidden details around him, but in actuality he’s just a
kid. Once again, Holden’s inability to understand the world around him—or, perhaps, his unwillingness to
acknowledge the world around him—reveals his profound disconnection and isolation.
Chapters 13–15
Summary: Chapter 13
Feeling like a coward for leaving Ernie’s, Holden walks the fortyone blocks from the nightclub back to the hotel.
Along the way, he thinks about his gloves, which were stolen at Pencey. He imagines an elaborate
confrontation with the unknown thief, but he acknowledges that he is a coward at heart, afraid of violence and
confrontation. When he reaches the Edmont, he takes the elevator up to his room. The elevator operator offers
to send him a prostitute for five dollars, and Holden, depressed and flustered, accepts. While waiting in his
room, he again thinks about his cowardice, because he feels that his lack of aggression has prevented him
from ever sleeping with a woman. Women, Holden believes, want a man who asserts power and control. As he
broods, the prostitute, Sunny, arrives. She is a cynical young girl with a high voice. Holden becomes flustered,
especially so when she removes her dress. She sits on his lap and tries to seduce him, but he is extremely
nervous and tells her he is unable to have sex because he is recovering from an operation on his “clavichord.”
He finally pays her the five dollars he owes and asks her to leave. She claims that the price is ten, but he
refuses to pay her more, and she leaves in a huff.
Summary: Chapter 14
Holden sits in his hotel room and smokes for a while. He remembers an incident shortly before Allie’s death
when he excluded Allie from a BBgun game—he still feels guilty for having left Allie out. Eventually, he goes to
bed. He feels like praying, but his distaste for organized religion prevents him from following through on his
inclination. Suddenly, there is a knock at his door. In his pajamas, Holden opens the door to face the burly
elevator operator, Maurice, who has returned with Sunny to collect the extra five dollars Sunny demanded.
Holden tries to refuse, but Maurice pins him against a wall while Sunny takes the money from his wallet.
Maurice snaps his finger into Holden’s groin, and Holden starts to insult him in response. Maurice slugs Holden
in the stomach and leaves him crumpled on the floor. Holden imagines himself as a movie character, taking his
revenge on Maurice after having been plugged in the gut with a gangster’s bullet. Finally, he manages to get
into bed and go to sleep.
Summary: Chapter 15
The next morning, Holden calls Sally Hayes and makes a date with her for later that afternoon. He checks out
of the hotel and leaves his bags in a locker at Grand Central Station. He worries about losing his money and
mentions that his father frequently gets angry when Holden loses things. He also describes his mother a bit,
noting that she “hasn’t felt too healthy since my brother Allie died.” Holden worries that the news of his
expulsion will particularly distress his fragile mother, for whom he seems to care a great deal.
Holden goes to eat breakfast at a little sandwich bar, where he meets two nuns who are moving to Manhattan
to teach in a school. Holden thinks about the superficial moneydriven world of the prep school he has just left.
Then he talks to one of the nuns about Romeo and Juliet. Despite his earlier expression of distaste for
organized religion, he forces them to take ten dollars as a charitable contribution. After they leave, although he
realizes he needs money to pay for his date with Sally, he begins to regret having given only ten dollars. He
concludes that money always makes people depressed.
Analysis: Chapters 13–15
During his previous expeditions around town, Holden maintained a distance from the people he was with,
dismissing them with scorn. As a result, he was able to protect his vision of an ideal world: instead of dealing
with real people and situations, he daydreams about Phoebe’s innocence and Jane’s warmth. Up to this point,
Holden has been able to avoid a clash between his real and his ideal worlds, but in these chapters, the conflict
becomes unavoidable, and Holden is caught in a moment of crisis and danger.
Sunny represents another of Holden’s attempts at female companionship, but she could not be more different
from the idealized Jane for whom Holden yearns. Whereas Holden’s relationship with Jane brought him
emotional satisfaction, his relationship with a prostitute can only be superficial, sexual, and devoid of emotion.
But Jane appears only in Holden’s memory, while the prostitute appears in his room. She concretizes Holden’s
continual conflict, representing something he both wants and doesn’t want, something he needs yet fears.
The tension between Holden’s growing sexuality and his fragile innocence grows much stronger throughout this
section. He wants to live in a beautiful world, but the pressure of his emerging sexuality and the demands of his
loneliness compel him to enter into encounters with people like Maurice and Sunny. Such encounters are so far
removed from the idealized encounters he fantasizes about that he departs from them much more hurt and
wounded than before. Scared of the adult world, Holden clearly shies away from intimacy and is terrified of his
burgeoning sexuality: he is too scared both to call Jane and to sleep with Sunny. He takes refuge in isolation,
but this isolation only deepens the pain of alienation and loneliness.
While the harm Maurice and Sunny cause Holden is obvious, there are much more subtle reasons why his
encounter with the nuns leaves him feeling hurt and wounded. Holden has constructed a simplistic divide
between childhood, which he sees as innocent and good, and adulthood, which he finds superficial and evil.
This worldview allows him to maintain his cynical barrier of defense: he is able to rationalize his loneliness by
pretending that every adult around him is phony and annoying. In a way, Holden’s encounter with Maurice and
Sunny helps Holden by reaffirming his understanding of a cruel and senseless adult world. But the nuns are
kind, intelligent, and sympathetic. They don’t conform to his stereotyped understanding of organized religion,
nor do they seem to have the phoniness that Holden expects of anything institutionalized. He is surprised that
one nun loves Romeo and Juliet and that they can have a conversation about it.
Chapters 16–17
Summary: Chapter 16
After breakfast, Holden goes for a walk. He thinks about the selflessness of the nuns and can’t imagine anyone
he knows being so generous and giving. He heads down Broadway to buy a record called “Little Shirley Beans”
for Phoebe. He likes the record because, although it is for children, it is sung by a black blues singer who
makes it sound raunchy, not cute. He thinks about Phoebe, whom he considers to be a wonderful girl because,
although she’s only ten, she always understands what Holden means when he talks to her. He sees an
oblivious little boy walking in the street, singing, “If a body catch a body coming through the rye.” The innocence
of the scene cheers him up, and he decides to call Jane, although he hangs up when her mother answers the
phone. In preparation for his date with Sally, he buys theater tickets to a show called “I Know My Love,” which
stars the Lunts.
The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Holden wants to see Phoebe, and he goes to look for her in the park because he remembers that she often
rollerskates there on Sundays. He meets a girl who knows Phoebe. At first, she tells him that his sister is on a
school trip to the Museum of Natural History, but then she remembers that the trip was the previous day.
Nevertheless, Holden walks to the museum, remembering his own class trips. He focuses on the way life is
frozen in the museum’s exhibits: models of Eskimos and Indians stand as though petrified and birds hang from
the ceiling, seemingly in midflight. He remarks that every time he went to the museum, he felt that he had
changed, while the museum had stayed exactly the same.
Summary: Chapter 17
At two o’clock, Holden goes to meet Sally at the Biltmore Hotel; she is late but looks very attractive, so he
immediately forgives her tardiness. They make out in the taxi on the way to the theater. At the play, the actors
annoy Holden because, like Ernie the piano player, they are almost too good at what they do and seem full of
themselves. During intermission, Sally irritates Holden by flirting with a pretentious boy from Andover, another
prep school, but he nonetheless agrees to take her iceskating at “Radio City” (Radio City Music Hall is part of
Rockefeller Center, where there is an iceskating rink) after the show. While skating, Holden speculates that
Sally only wanted to go iceskating so she could wear a short skirt and show off her “cute ass,” but he admits
that he finds it attractive. When they take a break and sit down indoors, Holden begins to unravel. Oscillating
between shouting and hushed tones, he rants about all the “phonies” at his prep schools and in New York
society, and talks about how alienated he feels. He becomes even more crazy and impetuous, saying that he
and Sally should run away together and escape from society, living on their own in a cabin. When she points
out that his dreams are ridiculous, he becomes more and more agitated. The quarrel builds until Holden calls
Sally a “royal pain in the ass,” and she begins to cry. Holden starts to apologize, but Sally is upset and angry
with him, and, finally, he leaves without her.
Analysis: Chapters 16–17
Things go from bad to worse for Holden in these chapters. His behavior during his date with Sally is the surest
sign yet that he is heading toward emotional collapse. Throughout his tirade, Sally asks Holden to stop yelling,
and he claims not to have been yelling, indicating that he is unaware of his own extreme agitation. His attempt
to convince a shallow socialite like Sally to run away with him to a cabin in the wilderness also shows his
increasing distance from reality—or, at least, his inability to deal with the reality in which he finds himself.
Though Holden admits his behavior is odd when he says, “I swear to God I’m a madman,” he doesn’t do much
to explain its significance. Salinger continues to drop hints—like Sally’s requests for Holden to stop yelling—to
signal that the story behind Holden’s narration is darker and more troubling than it might at first appear. His
mood swings with Sally serve a similar purpose. When he first sees her, he is convinced he is in love with her.
He then alternates between annoyance and rapturous passion for the duration of their date, until he finally tells
her that she gives him “a royal pain in the ass.” Sally’s coldness and her lack of compassion are reflective of
the greater world’s lack of concern about Holden’s plight. Except for Jane and Phoebe, no one in his world
seems to care how he feels, so long as he observes social norms. Only when his actions violate those norms
does anyone notice his disturbed state, and even then, their usual response, like Sally’s, is to criticize him.
Despite the fact that Sally is obviously not a good match for him, Holden claims that at the moment he
proposed that they run away together, he did truly love her. His feelings are irrational, but they indicate how
desperate he is to find love.
This desperate need for love is counterbalanced by his inability to deal with the complexities of the real world.
Like his encounter with the nuns in Chapter 15, his date with Sally demonstrates how illequipped he is to deal
with actual people. Sally does not seem to be a very complex character, but Holden cannot connect with her at
all. His wild proposals are not the kind of thing Sally is interested in, and he displays callousness when he
insults her. As Holden proposes impossible schemes only to lash out when their ridiculousness is made
apparent, his oversimplified, idealized fantasy world begins to seem less endearing and more dangerous.
After the fiasco with Sally, Holden retreats into nostalgic desires to return to childhood. In recalling his visits to
the Museum of Natural History, Holden indicates that he wants life to be like the tableaux he loves: frozen,
unchanging, simple, and readily comprehensible. He says that he wishes that everything in life could be placed
inside glass cages and preserved, like in the museum. His encounter with Sally shows that he cannot deal with
the complexity, conflict, and change of real life. In the museum’s world, communication is unidirectional: Holden
can judge the exhibits, but the exhibits cannot judge him back. After he upsets Sally, he feels terrible and tries
desperately to set things right, but he fails, and he cannot tolerate the stressful situation in which he has
enmeshed himself. Isolation, he finds, is simpler than the stress that accompanies conflict.
Holden’s nostalgic love of the museum is rather tragic: it represents his hopeless fantasizing, his inability to
deal with the real world, and his unwillingness to think about his own shortcomings. He mentions that every
time he returns to the museum, he is disturbed because he has changed while the displays have not. But he is
unwilling to probe further. He readily admits that he can’t explain what he means, and probably wouldn’t want to
even if he could. Holden is unwilling to confront his own problems, protecting himself with a shell of cynical
comments and outlandish behavior.
Chapters 18–20
Summary: Chapter 18
After leaving the skating rink, Holden goes to a drugstore and has a Swiss cheese sandwich and a malted milk.
Once again, he thinks about calling Jane, but his mind begins to wander. He remembers the time he saw her at
a dance with a boy Holden thought was a showoff, but Jane argued that the boy had an inferiority complex.
Holden decides that girls always say that as an excuse to date arrogant boys. Finally, he calls Jane, but no one
answers. He then calls a boy named Carl Luce, whom he used to know at the Whooton School, and Luce
agrees to meet him for drinks later that night.
To kill time, Holden goes to see a movie at Radio City Music Hall. He finds the Rockettes’ Christmas stage
show ridiculous and superficial, but it makes him remember how he and Allie used to love the kettledrum player
in the Radio City pit orchestra. The man was an unnoticed, minuscule part of the show, but he seemed to take
joy and pride in what he did. After the show, the movie begins, which Holden claims to find boring as well.
When it is over, he begins walking to the Wicker Bar, where he is supposed to meet Luce. The movie was about
the war, so Holden thinks about the army. Based on what D. B. has told him, Holden decides that he could
never be in the military. He would rather, he says, be shot by a firing squad or sit on top of an atom bomb.
Summary: Chapter 19
At the Wicker Bar, located in the posh Seton Hotel, Holden thinks about Luce. Luce is three years older than
Holden and now a student at Columbia University. At the Whooton School, Luce used to tell the younger boys
about sex. Holden says that he finds Luce amusing, even though he is effeminate and a phony. When Luce
arrives, he treats Holden coolly, and Holden pesters him with questions about sex. Luce refuses to be drawn
into the kind of sex discussion that they had had at Whooton, and he suggests that Holden needs
psychoanalysis. Holden remembers that Luce’s father is a psychoanalyst, but Luce is evasive when Holden
asks whether Luce’s father ever analyzed his own son. Annoyed by Holden’s juvenile comments and questions,
Luce departs.
Summary: Chapter 20
After Luce leaves, Holden stays at the bar and gets very drunk. He stumbles to the phone booth and makes an
incoherent latenight call to Sally Hayes, angering both her and her grandmother. He then tries to make a date
with the lounge singer, an attractive woman named Valencia. When that fails, he tries, with no more success, to
make a date with the hatcheck girl.
He decides to walk to the duck pond in Central Park to see if the ducks are still around. Along the way, he
becomes quite upset when he drops and breaks the record he had bought for Phoebe. Because he had
splashed water in his hair at the hotel in an attempt to sober up, his hair begins to freeze and fill with icicles. At
the duck pond, he worries about catching pneumonia and imagines his funeral. He missed Allie’s funeral, he
says, because he was in the hospital after breaking the garage windows with his bare hands. He remembers
going to Allie’s grave with his parents. He becomes disgusted and sad, because the idea of placing flowers on
the grass that covers the stomachs of the dead disturbs him.
Holden wants to talk to Phoebe, and he is running low on money, so he decides to risk going home. He expects
his parents to be asleep, which will allow him to sneak in, speak with Phoebe, and then leave without being
heard. He leaves the park and begins the long walk home.
Analysis: Chapters 18–20
Holden’s offkilter ramblings in Chapter 18 about being killed by an atom bomb sound like the bravado of a
frightened, threatened boy. We have seen Holden’s bravado throughout the novel—when he worries that he is a
coward, when he screams at Maurice, when he imagines himself as a vengeful movie character seeking justice
through extreme force. But bravado is most important in this section because Holden’s interaction with the
effeminate Carl Luce causes him to exhibit a subtle vein of homophobia that will be important later in the novel.
Like many adolescent boys, Holden is uncomfortable with sexuality and especially uncomfortable with the idea
of homosexuality. Though Luce seems to prefer women, Holden finds him slightly “flitty,” and Luce brings out an
unpleasant lewdness in Holden’s behavior.
Holden aggressively questions Luce about sex and seems to feel titillated throughout their conversation.
Holden clearly wants Luce to give him some kind of guidance and insight into adult sexuality, but his attempts to
raise the subject are clumsy and immature, and Luce refuses to interact with Holden on the same footing that
they had at Whooton. When Luce leaves, Holden feels depressed and uncomfortable, and we get the sense
that he is disappointed in himself—that despite his protestations that Luce is a phony, he wanted to connect
with him and failed. With each successive interaction, Holden loses more faith in himself. He withdraws deeper
into his cynicism, while at the same time feeling more and more desperate to break out of his loneliness. After
Luce departs, Holden gets extremely drunk and acts completely unhinged. He hits on Valencia and the
hatcheck girl and then senselessly breaks into tears before walking through the freezing cold to the duck pond.
Though Holden does not acknowledge his imbalances, we again see how little control Holden has over both
himself and his worsening situation. Holden’s lack of introspection deepens our sense of the danger in which he
finds himself. His thoughts as he walks to the pond reveal what may lie at the root of his manic behavior: he is
upset and miserable at the memory of Allie’s death. His memory of leaving flowers on Allie’s grave leads him to
another one of his defensive understatements. He was obviously shaken by the trips to the cemetery, but all he
says in his narration is that he used to go with his parents, but he stopped accompanying them because he
“certainly didn’t enjoy seeing him in that crazy cemetery.” The conjunction of Allie’s memory with the image of
the duck pond helps to explain Holden’s preoccupation with the pond and establishes it as one of The Catcher
in the Rye’s key symbols. Allie is gone forever, and Holden does not believe in afterlife; his atheism was
mentioned in Chapter 14. Now, Holden is troubled by unexplained disappearances. He is anxious to know
where the ducks have gone, since he feels extremely threatened by the idea that people and things just vanish,
as Allie did. The pond itself becomes a minor metaphor for the world as Holden sees it. It is “partly frozen and
partly not frozen,” in a transitional state just like Holden himself and the world he inhabits.
Holden’s curiosity about the ducks also demonstrates an appealingly childlike quality: his willingness (shared
with his siblings) to pay attention to details that are conventionally ignored. Holden’s interest in the kettledrum
player at Radio City is another of these details. Holden associates adulthood with an unwillingness to explore
subtle and mysterious questions, but there are many difficult questions that he himself is unwilling to explore.
He never ponders what the duck pond means to him, why memories of Allie’s death trouble him so much, or
why he is having such difficulty dealing with the world around him.
Chapters 21–23
Summary: Chapter 21
Holden takes the elevator up to his family’s apartment. Luckily for him, the regular elevator operator is gone,
and he is able to convince the new one, who doesn’t recognize him, that he wants to visit the Dicksteins, who
live across the hall from the Caulfields.
Holden sneaks into his family’s apartment and looks for Phoebe, but she isn’t in her room. Holden tiptoes to D.
B.’s room, because Phoebe likes to sleep there when D. B. is in Hollywood. He finds Phoebe sleeping
peacefully, and he remarks that children, unlike adults, always look peaceful when they are asleep. As he
watches Phoebe sleep, he reads through her schoolbooks. She has signed her name “Phoebe Weatherfield
Caulfield,” even though her middle name is Josephine. He enjoys reading the notes to friends, the curious
questions, and the random imaginative jottings she has scribbled on the pages.
He finally wakes Phoebe, and she is overjoyed to see him. Bursting with energy, she talks feverishly about one
thing after another: her school play (in which she plays Benedict Arnold), a movie she has just seen, a movie D.
B. is working on, a boy at school who bullies her, and the fact that their parents are at a party and won’t come
home until later. But after her enthusiastic flurry of conversation, she realizes that Holden is home two days
early and must have been kicked out of school. Over and over, she repeats that their father will “kill” him.
Holden tries to justify his behavior, but she refuses to listen and covers her head with a pillow. Holden leaves
the room to get some cigarettes.
Summary: Chapter 22
Holden returns to Phoebe’s room and eventually gets her to listen. He tries to explain why he fails his classes
and tells her all the things he hates about school. She responds by accusing him of hating everything. He tries
to refute her claim, and she challenges him to name one thing he likes. He becomes preoccupied, thinking
about the nuns he met at breakfast. He also thinks about James Castle, a boy he knew at Elkton Hills School
who jumped out of a window to his death while being tormented by other boys.
He finally tells her that he likes Allie, and she reminds him angrily that Allie is dead. She asks what he wants to
do with his life, and his only answer is to mention the lyric, “If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye.”
Holden says that he imagines a gigantic field of rye on a cliff full of children playing. He wants to stand at the
edge of the cliff and catch the children when they come too close to falling off—to be “the catcher in the rye.”
Phoebe points out that Holden has misheard the words—the actual lyric, from the Robert Burns poem, “Coming
Thro’ the Rye,” is “If a body meet a body coming through the rye.”
Summary: Chapter 23
Holden leaves Phoebe’s room for a moment to call Mr. Antolini, an English teacher he had at Elkton Hills. Mr.
Antolini is shocked that Holden has been kicked out of another school and invites Holden to stay the night at
his house. Holden mentions to us that Mr. Antolini was the only teacher who approached James Castle’s body
after his death, the only one who demonstrated any courage or kindness in the situation. Holden goes back into
Phoebe’s room and asks her to dance. After a few numbers, they hear the front door open—their parents have
come home from their dinner party. Holden tries to fan away his lingering cigarette smoke and jumps in the
closet. His mother comes in to tuck Phoebe in, and he hides until she leaves. He then tells Phoebe goodbye,
letting her know of his plan to leave New York and move out west alone. She loans him the Christmas money
she’d been saving, and he leaves for Mr. Antolini’s. On the way out, he gives Phoebe his red hunting hat.
Analysis: Chapters 21–23
The scene in which Holden watches Phoebe sleep and reads through her notebooks is one of the most famous
in the book, one of the few moments of respite Holden finds from the brutality of the outside world. As he says,
adults “look lousy” when sleeping, but kids “look all right.” After Phoebe wakes up, however, things become
more difficult. Her insistence in Chapter 22 that Holden tell her something he likes sends his mind skittering
away from the question, and he remembers the violent death of James Castle, who committed suicide in a
turtleneck he borrowed from Holden. After remembering the death of this young boy, the only thing Holden can
think to tell Phoebe he likes is “Allie.” His mind is increasingly preoccupied with childhood and childhood death;
he thinks to call Mr. Antolini when he remembers the teacher picking up James Castle’s broken body in his
coat. He grows increasingly emotional and unstable; Phoebe’s unaffected kindness when she loans him her
Christmas money causes him to break into tears.
And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to
go over the cliff. . . .
(See Important Quotations Explained)
One of the most important passages in the novel comes when Holden tells Phoebe he would like to be the
catcher in the rye, saving little children from falling off the cliff. This passage elucidates the novel’s metaphoric
title. The rye field is a symbol of childhood—the rye is so high that the children cannot see over it, just as
children are unable to see beyond the borders of their childhood. Standing on the precipice that separates the
rye field of childhood from the cliff of adulthood, Holden wants to protect childhood innocence from the fall into
disillusionment that necessarily accompanies adulthood. Trapped between states, with his innocence in
jeopardy, Holden wants to be a “catcher in the rye,” a savior of the innocence missing in the world around him,
a world that has let him fall over the cliff into adulthood alone.
Holden’s mistake about the line from the Robert Burns song—his substitution of “catch a body” for “meet a
body”—is highly significant, as its placement in the novel’s title suggests. Burns’s song “Comin’ Thro’ the Rye”
exists in several versions, each with somewhat different lyrics. In some versions, the song is about a woman
who has gotten her clothes wet while she was out in a rye field, while in other versions the speaker of the song
is a woman discussing being out in a rye field. All versions of the song ask the question: is it wrong to “kiss”
and “greet” someone you are attracted to if you meet them out in the fields, even if you don’t tell the rest of the
world about it and you aren’t committed to that person? Implicitly, the song asks if casual sex, in the sense of
sex without a commitment, is always wrong. Thus, in Burns’s song, “meeting” means encountering a potential
sex partner, and the word itself may even connote having sex with that person. Casual sex is precisely the kind
of sex that Holden finds most upsetting throughout the novel. By “catching” children from falling off a cliff, he
really wants to protect them from the fall out of innocence into the adult world. In Chapter 25, Holden is quite
explicit that he specifically wants to protect children from knowledge of sex. He rubs the words “fuck you” off
the school wall because he worries that someone will explain to the children what it means. Thus, what the lyric
means to Holden is almost the exact opposite of what the song is about.
Chapter 24
Summary
When Holden arrives at Mr. Antolini’s, Mr. Antolini and his wife have just wrapped up a dinner party in their
upscale Sutton Place apartment. Glasses and dishes are everywhere, and Holden can tell that Mr. Antolini has
been drinking. Holden takes a seat, and the two begin talking. As Mrs. Antolini prepares coffee, Mr. Antolini
inquires about Holden’s expulsion from Pencey Prep. Holden reveals that he disliked the rules and regulations
at Pencey Prep. As an example, he mentions his debate class in which students were penalized for digressing
from their subject. Holden argues that digressions are more interesting. Instead of offering complete sympathy,
Mr. Antolini gently challenges Holden, pointing out that digressions are often distracting, and that sometimes it
is more interesting and appropriate to stick to the topic. Holden begins to see the weakness of his argument
and becomes uncomfortable. But Mrs. Antolini cuts the tension, bringing coffee for Holden and Mr. Antolini
before going to bed.
“I have a feeling that you’re riding for some kind of terrible, terrible fall.”
(See Important Quotations Explained)
After this respite, Mr. Antolini resumes the discussion on a much more serious note. He tells Holden that he is
worried about him because he seems primed for a major fall, a fall that will leave him frustrated and embittered
against the rest of the world, particularly against the sort of boys he hated at school. At this suggestion Holden
becomes defensive and argues that he actually, after a while, grows to semilike guys like Ackley and
Stradlater. After an awkward silence, Mr. Antolini further explains the “fall” he is envisioning, saying that it is
experienced by men who cannot deal with the environment around them. But he tells Holden that if he applies
himself in school, he will learn that many men and women have been similarly disturbed and troubled by the
human condition, and he will also learn a great deal about his own mind. Holden seems interested in what Mr.
Antolini has to say, but he is exhausted. Finally, he is unable to suppress a yawn. Mr. Antolini chuckles, makes
up the couch, and, after some small talk about girls, lets Holden go to sleep.
Suddenly, Holden wakes up; he feels Mr. Antolini’s hand stroking his head. Mr. Antolini claims it was nothing,
but Holden believes Mr. Antolini is making a homosexual advance and hurries out of the apartment.
Analysis
At first, Mr. Antolini seems to offer Holden his only chance of making a sympathetic connection with an adult.
Holden respects his teacher’s intelligence and seems legitimately interested in Mr. Antolini’s lecture about
finding “what size mind you have.” It is significant that Holden consistently refers to his former teacher as “Mr.
Antolini,” whereas he refers to Mr. Spencer as “old Spencer” or “Spencer.” But a subtly menacing undercurrent
runs through Holden’s description of his time at the Antolinis’: the unwashed glasses from the dinner party, Mrs.
Antolini’s unattractive appearance without her makeup, and Mr. Antolini’s excessive drinking all contribute to a
feeling of discomfort that Holden never explicitly acknowledges. When Holden wakes to find Mr. Antolini
stroking his head, he snaps. The pressure of his surging sexual feelings, combined with the nervous
homophobia he exhibited around Carl Luce, make Mr. Antolini’s gesture more than he can handle, and he
leaves Mr. Antolini’s apartment awkwardly and hastily.
The question of whether Mr. Antolini really made a homosexual advance on Holden is much more complicated
than Holden implies. Holden might be right—Antolini’s inquiries about Holden’s girlfriends and the fact that he
calls Holden “handsome” as he wishes him goodnight could be read as flirtatious advances. But it seems far
more likely that Mr. Antolini’s gesture was simply a tipsy sign of affection for a student in obvious pain, a
student in whom Mr. Antolini sensed something fragile and genuine. But, as with everything else, Holden is rash
and uncompromising in his interpretation of his teacher’s behavior, and, with that rash interpretation, all of
Holden’s trust and faith in Mr. Antolini vanish. Mr. Antolini is clearly a more complex and multidimensional
character than Holden makes him out to be. But, as we have already seen, what little stability Holden has left
depends on his maintaining an oversimplified worldview—he cannot tolerate motives that are at all ambiguous.
Throughout the scene, we remain as puzzled as Holden is as to what is really going on, which allows us to
empathize with Holden in the crisis he experiences as a result of the encounter.
The fact that Mr. Antolini is trying to prevent Holden from “a fall” obviously parallels Holden’s image of the
“catcher in the rye.” Yet, Mr. Antolini is a very different kind of catcher from the one Holden envisioned, and the
type of fall he describes is different from the one Holden imagines. Holden fantasizes about protecting children
from adulthood and sexuality (see Chapter 25), but Mr. Antolini describes the more frightening fall that will come
if Holden himself refuses to grow up. Holden maintains an idealized view of childhood, and simplified view of
adulthood, in order to justify his withdrawal from society. He resists intimacy because the complexities of
realworld relationships collapse his simplistic perspective. Mr. Antolini’s trenchant criticism forces Holden to
see his own problems, while the ambiguity of his motives force him to encounter the complexity and ambiguity
of the adult world. As such, he is beginning to see the trap of painful loneliness and isolation he has created for
himself with his largely selfimposed alienation.
Chapters 25–26
Summary: Chapter 25
After leaving Mr. Antolini’s, Holden goes to Grand Central Station and spends the night sleeping on a bench in
the waiting room. The next day, he walks up and down Fifth Avenue, watching the children and feeling more
and more nervous and overwhelmed. Every time he crosses a street, he feels like he will disappear, so each
time he reaches a curb, he calls to Allie, pleading with his dead brother to let him make it to the other side. He
decides to leave New York, hitchhike west, and never go home or to school again. He imagines living as a
hermit, never talking to anybody, and marrying a deafmute girl.
He goes to Phoebe’s school and writes her a note telling her to meet him at the Museum of Art so he can return
the money she lent him. As he wanders around his old school, he becomes even more depressed when he
finds the words “fuck you” scrawled on the walls.
While waiting at the museum, Holden shows two young kids where the mummies are. He leads them down the
hallway to the tomb exhibit, but they get scared and run off, leaving Holden alone in the dark, cramped
passage. Holden likes it at first, but then sees another “fuck you” written on the wall. Disgusted, he speculates
that when he dies, somebody will probably write the words “fuck you” on his tombstone. He leaves the exhibit
to wait for Phoebe. On the way to the bathroom, he passes out, but he downplays the incident.
Phoebe arrives at the museum with a suitcase and begs Holden to take her with him. He feels dizzy and
worries that he will pass out again. He tells her that she cannot possibly go with him and feels even closer to
fainting. She gets angry, refuses to look at him, and gruffly returns his hunting hat. Holden tells her he won’t go
away and asks her to go back to school. She angrily refuses, and he offers to take her to the zoo.
They walk to the zoo, Holden on one side of the street, Phoebe following angrily on the other. After looking at
some animals, they walk to the park, now on the same side of the street, although still not quite together. They
come to the carousel, and Holden convinces Phoebe to ride it. He sits on a park bench, watching her go around
and around. They have reconciled, he is wearing his red hunting hat, and suddenly he feels so happy he thinks
he might cry.
Summary: Chapter 26
Holden concludes his story by refusing to discuss what happened after his day in the park with Phoebe,
although he does say that he went home, got sick, and was sent to the rest home from which he now tells his
story. He says he is supposed to go to a new school in the fall and thinks that he will apply himself there, but he
doesn’t feel like talking about it. He wishes he hadn’t talked about his experiences so much in the first place,
even to D. B., who often comes to visit him in the rest home. Talking about what happened to him makes him
miss all the people in his story.
Analysis: Chapters 25–26
Holden’s breakdown reaches its climax in Chapter 25. As the chapter begins, Holden feels surrounded on all
sides by ugliness and phoniness—the profanity on the walls, the vulgar Christmastree delivery men, the empty
pomp of Christmas—and his recent interactions with Phoebe and Mr. Antolini have left him feeling completely
lonely and alienated. As he wanders the streets of New York, he looks at children and prays to Allie to keep him
from disappearing as the ducks disappeared and as Allie himself disappeared. It’s clear that Mr. Antolini was, at
least in part, correct: Holden does not feel connected to his environment. He imagines that he is an ephemeral
presence that will instantaneously vanish. Not only does he feel that he cannot relate to anybody, but he
doesn’t know how to deal with adult encounters, because they don’t fit neatly into the worldview he has
constructed for himself. As a result, he makes the only decision that seems logical in such a situation: he
decides to run away. Unable to deal with the world around him, and realizing that his cynical view of the world is
not grounded in reality, he decides to leave.
Phoebe demands to go with Holden, but it is unclear whether she needs him or whether she worries that he
needs her. Despite her young age, it’s safe to assume that she has a clearer perspective on the situation than
Holden, so the latter explanation seems more likely. Nevertheless, Holden sees the effect his plans have on
someone he cares about—a first sign of true maturity. He begins to come out of his shell, demonstrating
concern for Phoebe and a willingness to love people around him. After Holden makes the decision to stay and
Phoebe forgives him, she returns his hunting hat, reciprocating his gesture of kindness. It is the only moment of
reciprocal interaction that Holden experiences in the book: from Stradlater to Sally Hayes, most characters just
want to take things from him or use him for a specific purpose. The few characters who try to give Holden
something, like Mr. Spencer or Mr. Antolini, find that Holden is unwilling to reciprocate. He remains suspicious
of accepting their advice and unwilling to communicate. But here, he and Phoebe demonstrate true interaction,
both selflessly giving and humbly taking from each other. It is the kind of intimacy Holden has been longing for
and sorely missing.
When Holden watches Phoebe go around and around on the carousel, he finds himself deliriously happy as he
participates in a scene of childhood joy and innocence. With Phoebe, he seems to have found the human
contact he was looking for. The implication is that now, perhaps, he can begin the process of introspection and
healing that he needs.
In Chapter 26, despite his refusal to talk any more about his story, Holden nevertheless fills in some key
missing details: he went home; he was sent to a rest home to recover from the breakdown; he’s in
psychotherapy; and he’ll go to a new school in the fall. Holden’s defensively cynical tone continues throughout
the chapter, which raises the question of whether the novel’s ending is tragic. He says he plans to apply himself
in school next year and seems contemplative, but he is unable to express his feelings and says that he wishes
he hadn’t told so many people his story.
The novel’s ending is ambiguous. It is unclear whether Holden will fulfill the promise of recovery that is
suggested as he watches the carousel. Holden’s final statement—“Don’t tell anybody anything. If you do, you
start missing everybody”— suggests that he is still shackled by the same problems he has dealt with
throughout the book. He still seems scared and alone, and he continues to dread communication. On the other
hand, his final words suggest that he has begun to shed the impenetrable skin of cynicism that he had grown
around himself. He has begun to value, rather than dismiss, the people around him. His nostalgia—“missing
everybody”—reveals that he is not as bitter and repressed as he was earlier in the book.
Important Quotations Explained
1. “Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.”
“Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it.”
Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hotshots are, then it’s a game, all right—I’ll
admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hotshots, then what’s a game about it?
Nothing. No game.
Explanation for Quotation 1 >>
2. [Ackley] took another look at my hat . . . “Up home we wear a hat like that to shoot deer in, for Chrissake,”
he said. “That’s a deer shooting hat.”
“Like hell it is.” I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye, like I was taking aim at it. “This is a people
shooting hat,” I said. “I shoot people in this hat.”
Explanation for Quotation 2 >>
3. The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d
move. . . . Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you.
Explanation for Quotation 3 >>
4. . . . I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to
go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from
somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.
Explanation for Quotation 4 >>
5. “I have a feeling that you’re riding for some kind of terrible, terrible fall. . . . The whole arrangement’s
designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment
couldn’t supply them with. . . . So they gave up looking.”
Key Facts
full title · The Catcher in the Rye
author · J. D. Salinger
type of work · Novel
genre · Bildungsroman (comingofage novel)
language · English
time and place written · Late 1940s–early 1950s, New York
date of first publication · July 1951; parts of the novel appeared as short stories in Collier’s, December
1945, and in The New Yorker, December 1946
publisher · Little, Brown and Company
narrator · Holden Caulfield, narrating from a psychiatric facility a few months after the events of the novel
point of view · Holden Caulfield narrates in the first person, describing what he himself sees and
experiences, providing his own commentary on the events and people he describes.
tone · Holden’s tone varies between disgust, cynicism, bitterness, and nostalgic longing, all expressed in a
colloquial style.
tense · Past
setting (time) · A long weekend in the late 1940s or early 1950s
setting (place) · Holden begins his story in Pennsylvania, at his former school, Pencey Prep. He then
recounts his adventures in New York City.
protagonist · Holden Caulfield
major conflict · The major conflict is within Holden’s psyche. Part of him wants to connect with other people
on an adult level (and, more specifically, to have a sexual encounter), while part of him wants to reject the adult
world as “phony,” and to retreat into his own memories of childhood.
rising action · Holden’s many attempts to connect with other people over the course of the novel bring his
conflicting impulses—to interact with other people as an adult, or to retreat from them as a child—into direct
conflict.
climax · Possible climaxes include Holden’s encounter with Sunny, when it becomes clear that he is unable to
handle a sexual encounter; the end of his date with Sally, when he tries to get her to run away with him; and his
departure from Mr. Antolini’s apartment, when he begins to question his characteristic mode of judging other
people.
falling action · Holden’s interactions with Phoebe, culminating in his tears of joy at watching Phoebe on the
carousel (at the novel’s end he has retreated into childhood, away from the threats of adult intimacy and
sexuality)
themes · Alienation as a form of selfprotection; the painfulness of growing up; the phoniness of the adult
world
motifs · Relationships, intimacy, and sexuality; loneliness; lying and deception
symbols · The “catcher in the rye”; Holden’s red hunting hat; the Museum of Natural History; the ducks in the
Central Park lagoon
foreshadowing · At the beginning of the novel, Holden hints that he has been hospitalized for a nervous
breakdown, the story of which is revealed over the course of the novel.
Study Questions & Essay Topics
Study Questions
1. Holden narrates the story of The Catcher in the Rye while he is recovering from his breakdown. Do you think
the promise of recovery that Holden experiences as he watches the carousel at the end of the novel has been
fulfilled? Specifically, has Holden gained a more mature perspective on the events that he narrates?
Answer for Study Question 1 >>
2. What is the significance of the carousel in Chapter 25?
Answer for Study Question 2 >>
3. Though Holden never describes his psychological breakdown directly, it becomes clear as the novel
progresses that he is growing increasingly unstable. How does Salinger indicate this instability to the reader
while protecting his narrator’s reticence?
Answer for Study Question 3 >>
Suggested Essay Topics
1. Think about Holden’s vision of the nature of childhood and adulthood. Are the two realms as separate as
Holden believes them to be? Where does he fit in?
2. The novel is structured around Holden’s encounters and interactions with other people. Does any pattern
seem to emerge, or does anything change in his interactions as the novel progresses? How do Holden’s
encounters with adults, children, women, and his peers evolve as the novel progresses?
3. Throughout the book, Holden longs for intimacy with other human beings. Discuss the different types of
relationships Holden attempts and the different types of intimacy in the book. What is the role of sexuality
in The Catcher in the Rye? How do Holden’s sexual relationships differ from his nonsexual encounters?
4. The most ambiguous encounter in the book is Holden’s night at Mr. Antolini’s apartment. What do you make
of Mr. Antolini’s actions? Was he making a pass at Holden? What is the significance of his actions, and how do
they relate to his role as someone trying to prevent Holden from “taking a fall”?
5. Holden often behaves like a prophet or a saint, pointing out the phoniness and wickedness in the world
around him. Is Holden as perfect as he wants to be? Are there instances where he is phony and full of
hypocrisy? What do these moments reveal about his character and his psychological problems?
Quiz
1. When the novel begins, Holden describes
(A) Watching a football game
(B) Taking a train to New York
(C) Recuperating in a tuberculosis rest home
(D) Riding a carousel in Central Park
2. What is the name of the school Holden is attending at the beginning of his story?
(A) The Whooton School
(B) Pencey Prep
(C) Don Bosco High
(D) Elkton Hills
3. Holden was forced to return early to school from New York because
(A) His parents caught him in their apartment.
(B) He lost the fencing team’s equipment.
(C) He desperately wanted to see the final football game.
(D) He needed to see Mr. Spencer.
4. What item of clothing did Holden buy during the team’s trip to New York?
(A) A hound’stooth jacket
(B) A red hunting hat
(C) A brown derby
(D) A pink leisure suit
5. Contrasting him with the annoying and sloppy Ackley, Holden describes Stradlater as a(n)
(A) “Analretentive neatfreak”
(B) “Guy whose mess you don’t mind”
(C) “Clean and nice roommate”
(D) “Secret slob”
6. Holden tries to punch Stradlater immediately after
(A) Stradlater refuses to answer Holden’s questions about his date.
(B) Stradlater suddenly attacks him.
(C) Stradlater brags about his sexual conquests.
(D) Stradlater rips his hound’stooth jacket.
7. Holden nostalgically remembers the way Jane Gallagher used to
(A) Talk about the Museum of Natural History
(B) Play checkers
(C) Write stories
(D) Ride her bike
8. Once back in New York, the first person Holden tries to invite for a drink is
(A) A cab driver
(B) Faith Cavendish
(C) Carl Luce
(D) Sally Hayes
9. Holden wonders about the fate of which animals in Central Park?
(A) The squirrels in the Sheep Meadow
(B) The goats in the Children’s Zoo
(C) The feral dogs roaming the Nature Preserve
(D) The ducks in the lagoon
10. After Holden checks into his room at the Edmont Hotel, what does he see out of his window?
(A) A parade
(B) A flock of ducks flying away from the Central Park lagoon
(C) A variety of bizarre sex acts going on in other rooms of the hotel
(D) Jane Gallagher fooling around with Stradlater
11. According to Holden, he knew he was happy when he was
(A) Holding hands with Jane
(B) Writing essays for Mr. Spencer
(C) Fooling “phonies” with elaborate lies
(D) Listening to Ernie play piano
12. The elevator operator at the Edmont offers to get Holden
(A) Drugs
(B) Complimentary breakfast
(C) A prostitute
(D) Movie tickets
13. Holden claims he can’t sleep with Sunny because
(A) He’s a virgin.
(B) He loves her too much.
(C) He’s mourning the death of his mother.
(D) He’s just had an operation on his “clavichord.”
14. After Maurice hits Holden in the crotch, what does Holden do?
(A) He repeatedly insults Maurice, resulting in further physical punishment.
(B) He punches Maurice in the face.
(C) He collapses to the floor, cursing at Sunny.
(D) He hops around the room, spewing profanities while smoke comes out of his ears.
15. After his encounter with Maurice, Holden
(A) Calls the police
(B) Calls Jane Gallagher
(C) Pretends he’s a movie character who has been shot
(D) Realizes he’s in love with Sunny
16. At breakfast, Holden is surprised that the nun
(A) Eats fatty foods
(B) Likes Romeo and Juliet
(C) Shows no remorse over stealing the collection money
(D) Spits water on her partner’s face
17. What does Holden buy for Phoebe?
(A) A book titled Out of Africa
(B) An autographed photograph of Robert Donat
(C) A record titled “Little Shirley Beans”
(D) A pair of yellow shoes
18. According to Holden, what is “the best thing” about the Museum of Natural History?
(A) “That everything always stayed right where it was”
(B) “That no goddam phonies ever went there”
(C) “That this one crazy Indian always reminds [him] of Allie”
(D) “That the birds look exactly like the ducks in the lagoon”
19. As Holden predicted, Sally is excited to
(A) Talk about their futures
(B) Openly discuss their problems and emotions
(C) See the Lunts
(D) Listen to “Little Shirley Beans”
20. Although Phoebe’s real middle name is “Josephine,” she signs her name as
(A) Phoebe Weatherfield Caulfield
(B) Phoebe Allie Caulfield
(C) Phoebe Benedict Arnold Caulfield
(D) Phoebe “Mad Dog” Caulfield
21. Phoebe chastises Holden because, in her mind, he
(A) Smokes too many cigarettes
(B) Dates terrible women
(C) Is too nice
(D) Doesn’t like anything
22. What or who is the “catcher in the rye”?
(A) Holden’s dream job
(B) Phoebe’s favorite stuffed animal
(C) An old college buddy of Holden’s father
(D) A symbolically important drinking glass
23. Just before he leaves her room, Phoebe gives Holden
(A) A stern scolding
(B) A record she had bought for him
(C) Her Christmas money
(D) His red hunting hat
24. Holden leaves Mr. Antolini’s apartment because
(A) Mr. Antolini passes out drunk.
(B) He feels sick.
(C) He thinks Mr. Antolini made a pass at him.
(D) Mr. Antolini throws him out.
25. As he prepares to leave New York City, Holden repeatedly encounters
(A) Mr. Antolini
(B) Vulgarity scrawled on walls
(C) His brother’s ghost
(D) Ackley and Stradlater