Salinger, Jerome David. The Catcher in the Rye.

Summary

Background: The first person narrator is the seventeen-year-old Holden Caulfield, currently on a prolonged stay in a hospital or sanatorium recovering from an unspecified illness. He addresses presumably a psychologist whom he wants to tell about the ‘madman stuff’ that happened to him last Christmas when he was a year younger (p. 1). He does no care to talk about his whole life story, though, and this is how he begins:

‘If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.’ (p. 1).

Kicked out of School: The story proper begins in Pencey Prep in Agerstown, Pennsylvania, on a chilly Saturday afternoon in December 1949. Holden stands on a hill near the school grounds and watches the football game going on between his school and a guest team. He has just returned from New York with the fencing team for which he works as a manager. His team did not take part in the tournament at all because Holden forgot their equipment on the subway. Holden watches the football for a while and then goes to take leave from Mr Spencer, his kind history teacher. He wants to say good-bye to him because he has been kicked out of school. He flunked four subjects out of five, Pencey Prep being already his fourth school.

Mr Spencer the Teacher: The aged Mr Spencer tries to discuss with Holden his lack of commitment and interest in education. Holden feels uncomfortable with the teacher, especially when he reads to him aloud his embarrassing essay on the Egyptians. Holden does not feel like having a serious talk and he thinks of his home in New York, near Central Park, and a lagoon in the Park. He wonders if the lagoon is frozen now and what happened to the ducks there. Are they still there, or have they migrated, or have they been transported to a zoo? Holden feels sorry for the teacher and tries to explain: ‘I’m just going through a phase right now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don’t they’ (p. 13)? Mr Spencer does not sound convinced and neither does Holden himself.

Stradlater, Ackley, Jane: Holden returns to his room in the hall of residence. He shares his room with Ward Stradlater, a conceited boy who loves to show off his handsome face and athletic figure. The next room is occupied by Ackley, an annoying bore, who keeps on intruding into Holden’s room through the shower curtains which divide the two rooms. Holden feels sorry for the friendless Ackley who repudiates people by his pimpled face and his neglected teeth. Whereas Ackley only boasts with his fictional sexual experiences, Stradlater actually enjoys a rich sexual life. Stradlater has a date with Jane Gallagher, Holden’s former neighbour and close friend. Holden never got to any intimacies with Jane but he always felt happy and comfortable in her presence. They used to play checkers a lot together. Holden worries that Stradlater only wants to ‘give her the time’.

Fight over a Girl: Stradlater asks Holden to write for him a descriptive composition. Holden chooses as subject his brother Allie’s baseball mitt which has poems inscribed on it. Allie died of leukaemia when Holden was thirteen years old. When Holden learned the news, he broke all the garage windows with his fists. Stradlater does not like Holden’s essay and Holden takes it from him and tears it. Holden tries to learn from Stradlater how his date was. Stradlater only tells him that they were together in a borrowed car. Holden gets furious because he sees that Stradlater does not care for Jane seriously. Holden hits his rival but he is neither very strong nor fond of fights, so Stradlater easily beats him and Holden ends up with his face smeared in blood.

Leaving for New York: Holden feels lonely and depressed. He decides on impulse to leave the school immediately instead of waiting until Wednesday when the holiday begins. He takes a train to New York and plans to stay in an inexpensive hotel and give his parents some time to digest the news. The director of the school sent them a letter to announce Holden’s dismissal and Holden wants the letter to arrive sooner than himself. On the train he meets the mother of his unbearable school mate Ernest Morrow. He explains his early leave by claiming that he must undergo an operation of ‘this tiny little tumor on the brain’ (p. 51). He is immediately sorry for inventing such an excuse but he cannot help himself:

‘I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It’s awful. If I’m on my way to the story to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I’m going, I’m liable to say I’m going to the opera. It’s terrible.’ (p. 14).

Hotel Night Club: In New York Holden takes a cab and casually asks the driver if he does not happen to know what becomes of the ducks in the Central Park lagoon in winter. The driver thinks that he is making fun of him. Holden accommodates himself in the Edmont Hotel which he finds a cheap and disreputable place ‘full of perverts and morons’ (p. 54). He feels horny and calls one Faith Cavendish, a stripper whose number he got from his acquaintance, Eddie Birdsell. The girls refuses his invitation for a cocktail. Holden goes to the hotel night club and joins three women of about thirty at their table. He dances with Bernice, the only pretty of the three. The women are on a hunt for film stars and they do not pay any attention to Holden. They apparently think him too young to invite them for cocktails but they have him pay for all their drinks as a matter of course.

D.B.’s Favourite Club: Holden takes a cab to another night club. Again he tries to ask the driver about the ducks. The driver only knows that the fish remain where they are because it is their nature. The club where Holden goes is called Ernie’s, it is in Greenwich Village and it is the favourite club of his elder brother D.B. D.B. is a writer, currently working as a scriptwriter in Hollywood. Holden hates films and thinks that D.B. prostitutes his talents on scriptwriting. D.B. is however well off, as far as money is concerned. In the club Holden meets the phony Lillian Simmons, D.B.’s former girlfriend, who is there with a Navy officer. There is nothing to do but to drink, smoke, and listen to the piano player. The piano player is very good but he spoils the music by his knowing that he is good. Holden leaves the club depressed.

Prostitute: Back in the hotel, Maurice the elevator boy offers Holden a prostitute. He accepts, thinking that this could be an occasion to practice on a professional. He never got with a girl further than to necking. The prostitute is a girl of about Holden’s age who calls herself Sunny. She is very professional and very unfriendly. Holden eventually does not feel like attempting anything and he makes up an excuse. He only wants to have a conversation with her but she depresses him. She asks for twice as much than what Maurice said. It is already morning dawn when Holden retires to bed. Suddenly Maurice knocks on his door and asks for more money on behalf of Sunny. Holden refuses but Maurice beats him and takes the money anyway. Holden remains lying on the floor and cries.

Nuns: When Holden wakes up, he arranges a date with his sometime girlfriend, the phony but good-looking Sally Hayes. Holden has his breakfast in a buffet where he meets two nuns. He engages in a conversation with them and makes a generous contribution for charity. Then he looks for a shop where they would have a record that he wants to buy for his sister Phoebe. The ten-year-old Phoebe is smart, nice, and understanding, to Holden she is a sister with sense. Holden sees a family with an about six-year-old boy returning from the Sunday service. The boy is humming to himself the song ‘If a body catch a body coming through the rye’ (104). Holden wishes to get in touch with Phoebe but he does not find a way how to call her without his parents answering the phone first. He at least goes to his and Phoebe’s favourite Museum of Natural History. He likes the place because it never changes.

Argument with Sally: Holden goes with Sally to a snobbish show. Unlike Holden, Sally enjoys herself and spends the break chatting with a fellow snob. Then they go ice-skating and Holden attempts to engage Sally in a serious talk. He feels fed up with everything and scared that something will go terribly wrong if he does not do anything. He complains: ‘I don’t get hardly anything out of anything. I’m in bad shape. I’m in lousy shape’ (118). He suggests to Sally to take a trip for a couple of weeks, to live in a country cot, and to escape from the busy New York life. Sally shows little understanding and thinks that they have time enough for such plans. Holden opposes, he thinks that when they are adults, they become phonies like everyone else. Holden offends Sally and they part.

Drunk in Central Park: Holden arranges to meet Carl Luce, his former school mate, a phony intellectual and a self-proclaimed sex expert. Holden tries to get from Carl answers to his questions relating love and sex, but the conversation is completely dissatisfying. Holden gets very drunk. He calls Sally to tell her he is going to help her with trimming the Christmas tree, he tries to make the pianist from the bar deliver a message to the singer, and finally he goes to the Central Park to check about the ducks for himself. He does not find any ducks, he only breaks the record for Phoebe. He is freezing because he bathed his head and hair in a washbasin to get sober and did not care to dry it. He sits down on a bench and pictures himself dying of pneumonia and being buried.

Chat with Phoebe: He sneaks in his parents’ flat to have a chat with Phoebe. For a while he watches her sleeping, looks at her clothes neatly spread on the chair, and reads her school notebooks. On waking up, Phoebe hugs him affectionately and starts chatting happily. She gets very upset when she realizes that Holden must have been kicked out of school again. She thinks that the father will kill him. He explains that the school was too phony, but Phoebe blames him for not liking anything at all. He protests but is unable to name one thing that he really enjoys. He can only think of the nuns he met in the morning, of his brother Allie, and of Phoebe herself. What he wants to become is ‘the catcher in the rye’, inspired by what is originally a poem by Robert Burns:

‘Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around––nobody big, I mean––except me. 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––I mean if they start 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. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.’ (156).

Holden and Phoebe dance and ‘horse around’ for a while. When their parents return home, Phoebe helps Holden hide himself in a closet. Phoebe gives Holden the money she had for Christmas presents. Holden is moved to tears and gives Phoebe his new red hunting hat in turn.

Mr Antolini the ‘Pervert’: Holden calls Mr Antolini, his former teacher and friend, and is invited to come and stay overnight. Mr Antolini drinks steadily throughout the evening and tries to talk to Holden about his future. He sees Holden falling and ‘dying nobly, one way or another, for some highly unworthy cause’ (p. 169). He makes Holden promise that he will keep his advice written on a slip of paper: ‘The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one’ (p. 169). Holden is exhausted and goes to bed. He wakes up suddenly and finds Mr Antolini patting him on his head. He leaves in panic, fearing that the teacher is a pervert, and spends the rest of the night in the waiting room of a railway station.

Leaving for the West: In the morning Holden takes a walk along the Fifth Avenue. He finds the Christmas atmosphere delightful but he feels sick. He decides to hitch-hike to the West and find himself a job there. He wants to take leave from Phoebe first and goes to her school to leave her a message. There is a ‘fuck you’ sign on a wall in the school and Holden is sad when he sees it. He imagines the children seeing it and wondering what it means until some knowing fellow tells them. He erases the sign but soon finds another on a different wall. He waits for Phoebe in the Museum of Arts. He discovers another sign and realizes that there is not one peaceful place.

Returning Home: Phoebe arrives wearing Holden’s hunting hat and carrying a suitcase. She begs Holden to take her with him but Holden sorely refuses. He behaves cruelly to her, makes her cry, and she chucks the hat in his face. She refuses to return to school, so Holden leads her to the zoo. He tries to make it up with her by promising not to leave either and to return home. Phoebe is sore, silent, and walks as if she did not belong to Holden at all. They leave the zoo and arrive at carousels. Holden buys Phoebe a ride. Phoebe finally announces that she is no more ‘mad’ at him and gives him a kiss. Holden sends her for another ride and watches her happily from a bench:

‘I felt so damn happy all of sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth. I don’t know why. It was just that she looked so damn nice, the way she kept going around and around, in her blue coat and all. God, I wish you could’ve been there.’ (191).

Conclusion: Holden finishes his story. He does not want to comment it, he does not know himself what he thinks about it. In September he is going to a new school. He does not know if he is going to do any better now, but he plans to. He observes that he told his story to too many people and that he misses all of those whom he talked about, even the phonies, bores, and aggressors, like Maurice. He concludes with an advice: ‘Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody’ (192).

Analysis

Much of the charm of the novel lies in the personality of its young narrator. The story is presented solely from his point of view, which means that the attitudes, language, and overall style are adjusted to the teenage perspective. On one hand, Holden’s narrative exaggerates in exact data (e.g. Phoebe in the red hat could be seen from a ten-mile distance), on the other hand, it is perfectly sincere in describing authentic feelings and emotions.

Holden is a very sensitive young person. He likes to assume the pose of a tough, street-wise man, under the surface there is however a frail child struggling to come to terms with the reality around him. He is a typical teenager in that he is being overwhelmed by emotions that he is unable to classify and manage, he experiences quick shifts of one feeling or mood to its extreme opposite, he feels that nobody can understand what he means. What is also characteristic of teenagers, he is preoccupied with questions concerning sexuality and relationships with the opposite sex. His chronic inventions and lies to others characterize rather a younger age than Holden’s, but they may suggest that Holden feels vulnerable and fears to expose himself.

Holden’s sensitivity is well manifested in his relationships to other people. He is able of great empathy and deep affection (e.g. his pity for Ackley, his devotion to Phoebe). What is remarkable in Holden is his attitude to children. It seems that he realizes that he himself is still a child and that children need protection. This is epitomized in his wish to protect children playing in the rye from falling off the cliff. He describes himself as ‘yellow’, weak, and lacking courage. He admires courage in others to face both life and death, as in the bullied but brave boy James Castle who jumped out of the window rather than to take back what he said about his tortures.

One of the motifs of the novel are the issues of reality versus fiction and pretentiousness versus genuineness. Holden certainly does realize what is real and what is not, still he talks to his dead brother Allie and when he gets drunk, he acts as if he had a bullet in his stomach. The latter is an interesting amusement reminiscent of movie scenes, though it is to note that Holden hates movies. His dislike for movies might relate to his dislike for affected, phony, insincere behaviour. Holden is from a well-off upper-class family, and in this milieu there is much snobbery and pretentiousness, which is what Holden hates. Holden finds it extremely difficult to define his own self under this conditions, but the conclusion of the novel shows the narrator a little more mature than at the beginning and hopefully on his way to succeed.