Popular Text

Popular text is a type of oral or written discourse that is used to explain, describe, give
information or inform. The creator of an Popular text cannot assume that the reader or
listener has prior knowledge or prior understanding of the topic that is being discussed.
One important point to keep in mind for the author is to try to use words that clearly
show what they are talking about rather than blatantly telling the reader what is being
discussed. Since clarity requires strong organization, one of the most important
mechanisms that can be used to improve our skills in exposition is to provide directions
to improve the organization of the text.

The Catcher in the Rye

J.D. Salinger

Holden shares encounters he has had with students and faculty of Pencey, whom he
criticizes as being superficial, or, as he would say, "phony." After being expelled from
the school for poor grades, Holden packs up and leaves the school in the middle of the
night after an altercation with his roommate. He takes a train to New York, but does not
want to return to his family and instead checks into the dilapidated Edmont Hotel. There,
he spends an evening dancing with three tourist girls and has a clumsy encounter with a
young prostitute around his age named Sunny;his attitude toward the prostitute changes
the minute she enters the room, and after he tells her he just wants to talk, she
becomes annoyed with him and leaves. However, he still pays her for her time. She
demands more money than was originally agreed upon and when Holden refuses to pay
he is beaten by her pimp, Maurice (despite her suggestion that he simply threaten the
money out of Holden and leave).

Holden spends a total of three days in the city, characterized largely by drunkenness
and loneliness. At one point he ends up at a museum, where he contrasts his life with
the statues of Eskimos on display. For as long as he can remember, the statues have
been unchanging. These concerns may have stemmed largely from the death of his
brother, Allie. Eventually, he sneaks into his parents' apartment while they are away, to
visit his younger sister, Phoebe, who is nearly the only person with whom he seems to
be able to communicate. Phoebe views Holden as a hero, and she is naively unaware
that Holden's view of her is virtually identical. Holden shares a fantasy he has been
thinking about (based on a mishearing of Robert Burns' Comin' Through the Rye): he
pictures himself as the sole guardian of numerous children running and playing in a
huge rye field on the edge of a cliff. His job is to catch the children if they wander close
to the brink; to be a "catcher in the rye".
After leaving his parents' apartment, Holden then drops by to see a former, and much
admired, English teacher, Mr. Antolini, in the middle of the night, and is offered advice
on life and a place to sleep. Mr. Antolini tells Holden that it is the stronger man who lives
humbly for a cause that he believes in, rather than dies nobly for it. This rebukes
Holden's ideas of becoming a "catcher in the rye," a heroic figure who symbolically
saves children from "falling off a crazy cliff" and being exposed to the evils of adulthood.
During the speech on life, Mr. Antolini has a number of "highballs," referring to a cocktail
served in a highball glass. Holden's comfort is upset when he wakes up in the night to
find Mr. Antolini patting his head in a way that he perceives as "flitty." There is much
speculation on whether Mr. Antolini was making a sexual advance on Holden, and it is
left up to the reader to decide whether this is true. Holden leaves and spends his last
afternoon wandering the city. He later wonders if his interpretation of Mr. Antolini's
actions was actually correct.

Holden decides to move out west; he relays these plans to his sister, who decides she
wants to go with him. He refuses to take her, and when she becomes upset with him, he
tells her that he will no longer go. Holden then takes Phoebe to the Central Park Zoo,
where he watches with a bittersweet joy as she rides a carousel. He decides, while
watching Phoebe, to go home and "face the music". At the close of the book, Holden
chooses not to mention much about the present day, finding it inconsequential. He
alludes to "getting sick" and living in a mental hospital, and mentions that he'll be
attending another school in September. Holden says that he has surprisingly found
himself missing Stradlater and Ackley (his former classmates), and even Maurice the
elevator operator/pimp. He says, "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you'll start
missing everybody".