The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
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 made-up 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
gay men
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 sexual 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.
this text is invissible
