The catcher in the rye by J.D.

Salinger
SUMMARY
The story is narrated by Holden Coulfield in first person singular. He starts by telling us that he
is at the psychiatric facility and he is about to be taken home by his brother , who lives in
Hollywood. After this he tells us the story of how he had left highschool in Pennsylvania,
because of his poor academic achievements. In the story he was just about to go and say
goodbye to his history teacher, where he did not feel very comfortable because the teacher
pitied him, because of failing. Holden did not care for the situation at all, because he could not
wait to get out of there. Because of this he lied and said that he needed to go pack and left. He
went back to his room and tried to read, which Ackley didn’t really let him do. Holden hated
him, because he was quite stupid and had disgousting habits. After this Stradlater arrived, who
had a date with Jane Gallagher. Holden realised that he knew the girl and couldn’t shake her
out of his head, it bothered him that his roommate had a date with her. Since it was a Saturday
night he didn’t want to stay home so he joined Ackley and one of his friends and they went to
the movies in Agerston. They had already seen that movie so the got home early. He had a
bunch of time on his hands so he decided to write Stradlater’s descriptive essay for English. He
decided to write about the baseball glove of his brother, Allie. He tells us that Allie had died ,
and admits to what a wonderful child he was. Later, Stradlater arrived home and Holden
started asking about the date. S was very secretive and did not disclose much , this made
Holden very angry and he started using very harsh words. S hates to be called stupid, so he
puched Holden. Holden became very angry and went to Ackley’s room to sleep there. Ackley
was tired and didn’t speak with him much , Holden became very loneley. He decided to leave at
once. He plans to book a room in New York and stay there until his parents find out that he has
been kicked out. So in the middle of the night he packed up and got on a train. Soon he ran into
one of his classmates mother. She was verry appealing to him , so he introduced himself as
Rudolf and told her a bunch of positive things about her son. He arrieved in New York and
checked into a hotel where he observed a bunch of strange people. He saw a man in womens
clothing, and a couple who spat water at each other. He liked the girl so he called up an old
cellphone number which he had from a houseparty. Holden wanted to meet with the women,
but she wasn’t available that night. He became lonely again, and thought about calling Phoebe,
his sister. He brushed away the idea , he didn’t want their parents picking up by accident. So he
went down to the hotels bar and met with 3 women. He didn’t find any of the attractive, but
despite this he asked them all to dance. He rememenered Jane and all the precios moments
with her and got very loneley again. He went to a nightclub , where he met his brothers old
girlfriend, but didn’t want to stay with them so he lied that he had a date. He actually went
back to his hotel where the elevator operator offered him a woman. He agreed at once, and
went up to his room to get ready. He got nerveous and admitted that he was still a virgin. By
the time she arrived he had lost his enthusiasm, payed her and sent her away. The elevator
operator knocked on his door and demanded an additional 5 dollars for his service. Holden
didn’t want to give him the money because that was not part of the agreement. Because of this
he beat him up and took his money. In the morning he checked out immedieatley and made
plans to see one of his old girlfirends. He went to have breakfast and met with two nuns and
gave some money for their charity. He thought about Phoebe who rollerbladed every day in
Central Park, so he went there hoping to run into her but she was not there that day. He met
with Salley and they went to the movies and iceskating after. He asked her to run away with
him but she didn’t want to. He got sad and called the girl annoying. Salley started to cry which
angered Holden so he left her there. He wanted to meet with Jane but she didn’t pick up the
phone. So he arranged a meeting with one of his former classmates, until then he went to the
movies. He did not enjoy the film. In the evening the get together didn’t go quite so well,
Holden tried to ask about his friend but he replyed with short answers and left early. Holden
stayed at the bar for a long time and got himself very drunk. Since he had nowhere to go he
went for a walk in Central Park. Suddenly he thought of his sister and decided to go home and
talk to her. Phoebe was mad at him for getting expelled. He couldn’t stay because his parents
were about to arrive so he looked up one of his old teachers. His teacher was very kind to him,
he tried to explain to him how important shool is and that he needs to get his life together. In
the middle of the night he woke up to the teacher stroking his head, he became frightened and
left. He roamed around the city for a while but decided to sleep in a waiting room. He felt very
bad, he decided to leave and never come back. He wanted to say goodbye to Phoebe so he sent
a letter for her to school, so they could meet in her break. To his surprize Phoebe arrived with a
suitcase and told him that she was going with him. When he told her she couldn’t she got very
upset and started crying, Holden promised to never leave and told her that he would go home
with her instead. He took her to the zoo. Holden doesn’t tell the story further, we only know
that he became very sick and that he is starting school at a new place next year, at the moment
he is getting help from a psychiatrist to help him fit in.

Characters
Holden Caulfield, the 17-year-old narrator and protagonist of the novel, speaks to the reader directly
from a mental hospital or sanitarium in southern California. 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.

Holden is 16 years old as the central story begins, tall at 6 feet 2 1/2 inches, partially gray-haired, and
woefully skinny. He has grown 6 1/2 inches in just one year. His general health is poor, smokes too
much. He is alternately depressed, confused, angry, anxious, perceptive, bigoted, resentful, thoughtful,
kind, and horny.

To Holden, Pencey and the other prep schools that he has attended represent all that is artificial and all
that is despicable about any institution controlled by adults.

Holden resents the adult world and resists entry into it, but he has little choice. Society and his own
body are telling him that it is time for him to change. He is attracted to the trappings of adulthood:
booze, cigarettes, the idea of sex, and a kind of independence. But he despises the compromises, loss of
innocence, absence of integrity, and loss of authenticity in the grown-up world. He seems best at the
rites of passage (smoking and drinking) that are themselves artificial if not self-destructive. Despite his
limited experience, his attitude toward women is actually admirable and mature. He stops making
sexual advances when a girl says "No. His interactions with the prostitute Sunny are comic as well as
touching, partly because they are both adolescents trying to be adults. Although Sunny is the more
frightening of the two, neither belongs there.

Holden is literally about to crash. Near the beginning as well as the end of the novel, he feels that he will
disappear or fall into an abyss when he steps off a curb to cross a street. Sometimes when this happens,
he calls on his dead brother, Allie, for help.

His feelings are typically adolescent, feelings shared by virtually everyone who is or ever has been his
age. One of the reasons we like Holden is that he is so candid about how he feels.

Holden also struggles with family and class expectations. His family and culture expect him to be
reasonably successful at a prestigious prep school and move on to the Ivy League. Holden can't see
himself in that role, so he seeks escape, but his plans are spontaneous fantasies that cannot work. First,
he wants to run off with Sally Hayes and maybe get married. Later, Holden decides to flee to the West
where he will live as a deaf mute, ideal because he wouldn't have to talk with people. Holden is a
romantic but a negative one. His imagined ventures are escapes from reality rather than ascensions
toward a goal. The one exception is a beautiful but hopeless dream. When asked by Phoebe what he
would like to be, Holden rejects standard choices such as a lawyer or a scientist. He says he would like to
be "the catcher in the rye," standing by the edge of a cliff and keeping children, playing in an adjacent
field of rye, from falling off.

Holden does evolve toward the end of the novel. His acceptance of Phoebe's need to "grab for the gold
ring" indicates that he sees her as a maturing individual who must be allowed to live her own life and
take her own risks. At this point, he finally sees that children have to do this, and adults must let them.
That's a step forward from believing that he must be their protector. For better or worse, Holden's own
maturation has begun. He seems ready to surrender to the inevitability of growing up. He is exhausted,
physically and emotionally, ready to go home and collapse.

Phoebe is Holden's younger sister. She is successful in school, her best course being spelling. In her
spare time, she writes fiction featuring a girl detective, an orphan named Hazle Weatherfield. Phoebe
later adopts "Weatherfield" as her own middle name. She likes elephants and has red ones on her blue
pajamas.

Though only 10 years old, she is considerably more mature than Holden. She is a voice of reason
throughout the novel, both in Holden's thoughts and in the advice she gives to him in person. For
example, when he sneaks home in the middle of the night to talk to her, she gently admonishes him for
failing out of Pencey before encouraging him to drop his relentless cynicism and figure out what, exactly,
he wants to do with his life.

When Phoebe decides that she’s going to come with him after he declares that he’s going to move out
West. Her decision makes him see that this is an absurd idea, and because he doesn’t want to ruin his
sister’s life, he finally starts thinking levelheadedly about his own choices. On another note, it's no
coincidence that perhaps the most even-keeled and intelligent character in the novel is a child, since
Holden idealizes childhood and values children's opinions more than those of adults. Phoebe's
intelligence and wise counsel therefore offer a strong contrast to the lectures he receives from his
various teachers and headmasters, whom he resents.

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 sometimes sees right through her brother. She realizes early in
his visit that he has been expelled from Pencey. On the other hand, some of Holden's darker thoughts
are beyond her. She can't fathom why he is so self-destructive or why he doesn't just succeed in school
the way she does. When he bares his soul to tell her of his dream of being "the catcher in the rye," she is
quiet for a long time but then simply states, in reference to his expulsion, "Daddy's going to kill you,"
illustrating that despite their great friendship and connection, Phoebe is still only 10 years old and
cannot be expected to understand the true meaning of Holden's words.

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.

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.

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.

Ackley - Holden’s next-door 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, self-satisfied, 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.”

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. 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 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.

SYMBOLS

Holden's Red Hunting Hat

Holden's cap is a symbol of his insecurities and his creative personality. The bright red color appeals to
his desire to be someone distinct and to have meaning and significance. He also likes how it looks, even
if it's a little silly. Holden wears the hat when he feels confident, but he removes it and even hides it
when he feels insecure. His giving the hat to Phoebe is a sign of his appreciation for her strong character,
and when she puts it on his head after the carousel ride, he knows that she loves and accepts him as he
is.

The "Catcher in the Rye"

Holden's journey toward adulthood causes him to want to protect children. The phrase "catcher in the
rye" comes from Holden's misinterpretation of Robert Burns's poem "Comin' Thro' the Rye." In the
poem, two people happen to meet in a field of tall rye. The poem asks whether it is okay for this random
meeting to result in a sexual encounter and whether anyone else needs know about the encounter. It is
ironic, then, given how conflicted about sex Holden is, that he misinterprets the poem as a call to
protect children from the loss of innocence and specifically from too-early knowledge about sex. It is
why he wishes he could rub out all the obscene graffiti, a task he admits is "hopeless."

Allie's Baseball Glove

Holden's fear of change and his desire to protect children stem partly from the love he feels for his
younger siblings, and their love protects him in turn. Allie's glove, covered in poetry written in green ink,
acts as a talisman for Holden. He lovingly describes the glove and his brother in the composition he
writes, and he is enraged when Stradlater so casually dismisses what is, to Holden, nearly a sacred
object. The glove also represents the importance of language to Holden. Stories and poems help him
make sense of the confusing things that happen to him, which is perhaps why he speaks to Allie, the
young poetry lover, when he is in emotional distress.

Museum of Natural History

The museum's displays are frozen and unchanging and represent the world that Holden wishes he could
live in. Change frightens Holden, as it does many people. In the cool, hushed halls of the museum,
everything is comfortably still and solid. The stone floors and walls are sturdy and resist change, and the
exhibits are all in the same place every time he goes. Flashes of beauty and history are caught mid-
moment and fixed in forms Holden has known since he was a young child. However, in the museum, all
is old and dead as well. No new developments can happen in that sterile environment, which is both a
refuge and a trap for Holden.
The Ducks in the Central Park Lagoon

Holden's obsession with where the ducks in Central Park go in the winter when their water freezes over
is symbolic of his anxiety about impermanence. Some things in the park are permanent features, such as
the exhibits in the museum. Others change, however, with the seasons. The pond where the ducks live
sustains them in summer but becomes hostile to them in winter, driving them to other habitats in the
same way that the passage of time is driving Holden away from the familiar realm of childhood and into
adulthood. The ducks migrate to warmer places during winter, flying away from their troubles, much as
Holden fantasizes about fleeing to the west, where it's sunny and warm, to start a new life.