The Catcher in the Rye Summary and Analysis PDF

Preview

Summary

The Catcher in the Rye Summary and Analysis...

Description

3

Overview J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, published in 1951, is widely heralded as one of the best novels of the twentieth century. The coming-of-age novel captures the alienation that teenagers experienced in the years following World War II, and its popularity as an assigned text in American schools has led to its enduring relevance in American literature (and notoriety, as it frequently faced challenges or censorship from concerned parents). Plot Summary The novel is told in first-person, subjective point of view by Holden Caulfield, a teenager who is narrating the events of the novel from an unspecified institution. Holden’s family has sent him there, though he soon goes to live with his brother, D.B., in Hollywood. Holden says he wants to tell the story of how he arrived in his present situation, which he does in a discursive, inward manner that focuses on his internal struggles with depression at the world around him, particularly in light of the death of his brother Allie. Holden’s story begins as he is being expelled from his school, Pencey Preparatory Academy, after failing most of his classes; he has also caused the fencing team to forfeit their match after leaving the equipment on the subway in New York. He is due to go home for Christmas vacation in a few days, but after an eventful night punctuated by a depressing meeting with his teacher Mr. Spencer and a physical confrontation with his roommate Ward Stradlater over Stradlater going on a date with Holden’s old friend Jane Gallagher, he decides to take the money he has and head into New York City. On his arrival in New York, Holden has a series of picaresque adventures over the next few days as he thinks about Jane Gallagher, his younger sister Phoebe, and his dead brother Allie. On his first night, he checks into a hotel, the Edmont, and dances in the lobby’s nightclub with three young tourists; from there, he heads to another club, where he runs into a woman who knows his brother, then he heads back to the Edmont in a funk. The elevator operator offers to send him a prostitute, which he agrees to. When the prostitute, Sunny, arrives, he no longer wants to go through with it, and even though he agrees to pay her anyway, she says he is cheating her out of five dollars, which leads to a confrontation with the elevator operator in which Holden is beaten up.

4

The next day, he makes a date with Sally Hayes, an old fling, and spends the morning in and around Central Park. He has breakfast at a lunch counter, where he talks to two nuns, and he buys a record for Phoebe that he has been wanting to get her; he accidentally breaks it before having the opportunity. Holden’s date with Sally goes horribly, as he becomes agitated while trying to convince her to run away with him, and she leaves. Holden goes to the movies alone, then he meets his old friend Carl Luce at a bar. Carl is annoyed by Holden, thinking he should grow up, and Holden is left alone at the bar, where he gets very drunk. Low on money and thoroughly depressed, Holden decides to sneak home and visit Phoebe. He sneaks into his family’s apartment successfully; Phoebe is thrilled to see him, but she becomes upset when she realizes he’s been kicked out of school. Holden’s parents come home from a party, so he sneaks out and goes to see an old teacher, Mr. Antolini. Mr. Antolini offers him a place to stay and gives him an inspiring speech about Holden’s future, but Holden wakes to Antolini stroking his hair. Holden panics and leaves, ultimately spending the night in Grand Central Station. In the morning, he leaves a note at Phoebe’s school that he’s leaving, and they should meet at lunch. When they meet, she’s packed a suitcase to go with him and becomes angry again when he says she can’t come. They walk together to the zoo, and Holden buys Phoebe tickets to ride the carousel. Watching her ride the carousel as it starts pouring rain, he feels a moment of happiness, and his story ends there. Holden concludes his narration by saying that all he wants to tell about, and he says he’s not sure if he’s going to be any different when he leaves the institution. Given Holden’s unique voice and his yearning for childlike innocence, Catcher in the Rye became a manifesto for misfits in modern history. It was associated with several shootings, including the murder of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman. Chapman was arrested with a copy of the book, and he would go on to quote it when addressing the court. He so identified with Holden that he wanted to change his name to Holden Caulfield. Critics have theorized that Chapman, like Holden, was concerned with preserving innocence in murdering Lennon. J.D. Salinger refused film rights for the novel, but several films have used the characters and concepts of Catcher in the Rye. Salinger initially said that he might sign off on a stage adaptation only if he could play Holden, but the production never came to fruition, and Salinger died a recluse in 2010.

5

Chapter Summaries & Analyses Chapters 1-4 Chapter 1 Summary The novel begins with Holden Caulfield telling the audience that he’ll be narrating the events of the previous Christmas season that led to him ending up in a mental institution, which he refers to as “this madman stuff that happened to me” (3). He makes mention of his brother D.B., a writer who recently moved to Hollywood, and his parents before moving on to the subject of the day he left Pencey Prep, a school in Hagerstown, Pennsylvania. Holden begins his retelling with the moment he is standing on Thomsen Hill looking down toward the stadium, where the last football game of the season is taking place. He’s just arrived back from an aborted fencing team match—Holden is the team manager, and he left all the equipment on the subway in New York—and instead of going to the game, he’s decided to go and visit his history teacher, Mr. Spencer. Holden reveals he’s going to see Spencer to say goodbye; he’s been kicked out of school. Holden has paused on the hill to feel something about Pencey Prep; he has a dim opinion of the place and thinks the students are crooks and phonies. Still, he wants to have some kind of mental goodbye, which comes in the form of a good memory of throwing a football around with his friends Robert Tichener and Paul Campbell. As soon as he remembers that, he heads down the hill and jogs over to Spencer’s house, where Mrs. Spencer welcomes him.

Chapter 2 Summary The Spencers are in their seventies, and Holden finds Spencer’s continued living a little sad; Holden only came to visit because Spencer specifically asked him to. He goes into Spencer’s room and sits on the bed. Spencer asks Holden what the headmaster, Dr. Thurmer, told him, and Holden tells him that Thurmer insisted that life is a game, and that the rules should be followed. Spencer agrees, but Holden argues that’s only true if you’re on the side of the hot shots; otherwise, the game is meaningless. Spencer asks what Holden’s parents think, and he admits he hasn’t told them. Spencer then proceeds to read Holden’s essay about Egyptian culture aloud, including Holden’s note where

6

he admits that he wasn’t able to get interested in the subject and it’s okay if he fails the paper. Spencer is doing this to shame Holden; Holden realizes he’ll never forgive this, but he still sees that Spencer feels bad about it, so he stays to talk with him while his mind wanders to thinking about where the ducks go when the lagoon in Central Park freezes. Spencer asks Holden about leaving his previous school, Elkton Hills, and Holden says he didn’t flunk out, he quit. He explains to his audience that it was because the school was full of phonies, but he will later reveal that he witnessed a fellow student leap to his death, which likely played a role. Spencer insists he’s trying to put some sense into Holden. Holden tells him he knows this, but that Spencer shouldn’t worry about him; it’s just a phase Holden has to go through. Holden makes up an excuse to leave, and he thinks he hears Spencer yell “Good luck!” after him, which he thinks is a horrible thing to tell someone (21).

Chapter 3 Summary Holden heads back to his dorm, which is named after a man named Ossenburger, which reminds him of the time that his friend Edgar Marsella farted during a speech Ossenburger was giving to Pencey students. When he gets to his room, he settles in to read, but his suitemate, Robert Ackley, interrupts him. Holden has a poor opinion of Ackley, thinking of him as a nasty guy with a bad personality who rarely leaves the dorm. Ackley starts bothering Holden by wandering around the room and poking around Holden’s stuff, including a picture of Holden’s ex-girlfriend Sally Hayes. Holden tries to annoy him so he’ll leave, but Ackley can’t take the hint. He comments on Holden’s new red hunting hat, saying it’s for hunting deer, and Holden responds that he shoots people in it. Ackley asks Holden to retrieve a pair of scissors and then begins cutting his nails with them. While he does so, they talk about Holden’s roommate, Stradlater. Ackley and Stradlater don’t get along, primarily because Stradlater calls Ackley out on his poor hygiene. Holden stands up for Stradlater, saying he’d lend a person a tie without thinking twice about it. Just then, Stradlater arrives and asks Holden if he can borrow a jacket. It’s snowing outside, and he has a date downstairs. Holden protests, saying he’ll stretch the jacket out, but Stradlater says he won’t and gets it from the closet. Ackley makes an excuse to leave so he won’t have to be around Stradlater, and Stradlater decides he should shave first, heading for the communal bathroom.

7

Chapter 4 Summary Holden follows Stradlater to the bathroom and watches him shave. Holden likes Stradlater, even though he thinks Stradlater’s in love with himself and a bit of a womanizer. While Stradlater shaves, he asks Holden for a favor: he has a descriptive composition due, and he wants Holden to write it. Holden finds this ironic, since he’s the one being kicked out of school, and that leads him to careen from topic to topic in his mind until he grows bored and starts goofing off, dancing around to try and get Stradlater to laugh. Stradlater compliments Holden’s new hat and asks again if he’ll write the composition. Holden says he’ll do it if he has the time. When the conversation turns to who Stradlater’s going on a date with, Holden starts wrestling with him until Stradlater is able to break free. Stradlater reveals that his date actually knows Holden: it’s Jane Gallagher, an old neighbor. Holden grows excited at hearing her name and asks Stradlater several questions about her; Stradlater shows little interest in their shared history, as it isn’t anything sexy. Holden tells a story of when they used to play checkers and Jane would keep all her kings in the back row, unwilling to sacrifice them. Stradlater says Holden should come down and say hello, and Holden says he’s not in the mood. Stradlater heads back to their room, and Holden follows him, asking about the date. Stradlater is annoyed that Jane only signed out of her dorm until nine-thirty; it irritates Holden that Stradlater only sees Jane as a possible conquest, and it makes him nervous to think of dating Jane in general. Stradlater takes Holden’s coat and tells him to do the composition, leaving him alone until Ackley comes barging back into the room and hangs out until dinnertime.

Chapters 1-4 Analysis Understanding Holden Caulfield as a subjective narrator is key to understanding Catcher in the Rye as a whole. Though he doesn’t cross into the realm of being an unreliable narrator, he does make long digressions away from the plot of the novel as he remembers past events and becomes distracted by notions that the characters around him either don’t have interest in or don’t understand, and it’s important to recognize that the conceit of his narration—that he is speaking to his audience from an institution—hangs over the events of the novel. There are also subjects that he avoids or diverts from, sometimes purposefully and sometimes as a defense mechanism that he doesn’t realize he’s employing.

8

The “you” that he is speaking to is unresolved over the course of the novel; it could easily be a doctor or a fellow patient, and there is one moment toward the end of the book where the “you” seems to shift to mean his deceased brother, Allie. The effect that his narration achieves is part of why he is heralded as one of the most well-realized characters of 20th century literature; everything the reader experiences comes filtered through a bitter, depressed worldview of a young man who is having difficulty with the fact that he doesn’t fit into the society he sees as phony coupled with his struggle to reckon with the trauma of his brother’s death and witnessing the suicide of James Castle. The first chapters of the book paint a picture of a distracted, depressed young man who views his surroundings with disdain, and his feelings about phonies are a frequent refrain throughout the book. He is disgusted with the high society of preparatory schools, but he also hates more benign forms of artificiality, like the movies. To Holden, phonies come in many flavors—rich old prep school donors, Spencer wishing him good luck, Stradlater being so concerned with getting somewhere physically with Jane instead of getting to know her—but he’s still quick to empathize with the individual, as he does when Ackley says he doesn’t like Stradlater. It’s ironic that Holden says Stradlater is the type of guy who would give his tie to you without asking, which is immediately followed by Stradlater arriving home to borrow Holden’s jacket and ask Holden to complete his homework for him; despite all this, Holden still likes him, and it’s clear that though Holden may be annoyed by his classmates, he’s far from an outcast among them. His problem isn’t with the individual person acting in a way that’s phony, but with a society that privileges phoniness as the way things should be. Hearing Stradlater mention Jane Gallagher awakens something in Holden; it will be revealed throughout the book that Holden had true feelings for Jane that went unfulfilled in the time they knew each other. His memory of Jane keeping her kings in the back row is a marker of his view of her: someone who is cautious with themselves and is willing to buck the rules in order to stay that way. That she would go on a date with Stradlater is distressing, both because it contradicts Holden’s experience of her and because Holden is jealous. He spends the next few days of the novel reaching out to several people in his life, but he never speaks with Jane, despite repeated moments when he thinks to do so. There’s something unbearable about the idea to Holden, which can be interpreted either as a reluctance to embroil her in his current mental and social crisis or as a desire to not tarnish the idealized version of her from his past.

Chapters 5-8

9

Chapter 5 Summary After the customary Saturday night steak dinner, which Holden presumes is so the parents who visit on Sundays will be impressed about what the students are eating, Holden and his friend Mal Broussard intend to head into town to see a movie. Holden asks if he can invite Ackley, and Mal begrudgingly agrees. Back in his room, Holden waits on Ackley to get ready by opening a window and packing a snowball. He carries it with him until the bus driver makes him throw it out. Broussard and Ackley have both seen the movie, so instead the three of them eat hamburgers and play pinball for a while before heading back. When they return, Ackley won’t leave Holden’s room, and he tells him an obvious lie about sleeping with a girl. Eventually, Holden uses the excuse of Stradlater’s composition to get Ackley to leave. Holden writes about his brother Allie’s baseball mitt, which was covered in poems so Allie would have something to read in the outfield. Allie was Holden’s younger brother, and he died of leukemia a few years before the events of the novel. Holden was 13 when Allie died, and he remembers his brother as a kind, almost angelic figure. The night Allie died, Holden broke all the windows in the garage with his fist, which still hurts him sometimes. He feels bad about changing Allie’s name on the composition to hide the fact that he wrote it, but it’s clear that Holden got catharsis out of writing about his brother in this way. He finishes around ten thirty and spends some time staring out the window, listening to Ackley snore.

Chapter 6 Summary Holden becomes very worried about Stradlater’s date with Jane, and he sits up waiting for him to return. When Stradlater returns, he’s more interested in the composition than in the date he just had; when he reads it, he becomes angry with Holden, telling him he does everything wrong and it’s no wonder he’s flunking out. Holden grows angry and rips up the composition before getting in bed to smoke a cigarette; it’s against the rules, and he’s doing it pointedly to annoy Stradlater. When Stradlater doesn’t say anything about Jane, Holden finally starts asking questions. He’s worried he got her in trouble, staying out too late, but Stradlater says it was fine; they didn’t

10

go to New York, opting instead to hang out in a car. When Stradlater won’t say what happened between them, Holden attacks him. Stradlater pins Holden easily, and Holden swears at him and calls him a moron. Holden pretends to calm down so Stradlater will let him up, then continues calling him names. Stradlater hits him hard enough that he goes down, cracking his head on the floor, which makes Stradlater worried. Holden stays on the ground until Stradlater heads to the bathroom, then gathers ups his hat, looks at his bloodied face in the mirror, and crosses into Ackley’s room.

Chapter 7 Summary Ackley is awake because of the noise of Holden and Stradlater’s fight, and he’s alarmed to see Holden’s bloodied face; Holden tries to be nonchalant, asking if Ackley wants to play Canasta. Ackley keeps asking about the cause of the fight, and Holden finally says he was standing up for Ackley after Stradlater criticized him. When this excites Ackley, Holden admits he’s only kidding and lays down in the empty bed of Ely, who is away for the weekend. Laying there, Holden can’t stop thinking about Stradlater and Jane; he’s worried because Stradlater is the kind of person who really does have sex with women instead of just claiming to. He gets depressed about it and wakes Ackley again, asking what it’s like to join a monastery. Ackley thinks Holden is mocking Catholicism; Holden takes this as his cue to leave. At first, he thinks he might go see what Mal Broussard is up to, but he quickly decides he’ll go into New York and stay in a hotel until it’s time to head home to his parents. He goes back to his room and packs a bag, thinking about his mother’s coming disappointment as he does so. After counting his money, he decides to go down the hall and sell his typewriter to another student for twenty dollars. As he’s preparing to leave, Holden begins to cry. Then he yells “Sleep tight, ya morons!” at the top of his lungs and heads down the stairs (68).

Chapter 8 Summary Holden walks to the train station, lugging his suitcases behind him, where he catches a train to the city. Usually on trains he buys magazines and a sandwich, but tonight he doesn’t feel

11

like it; he’d rather do nothing. It’s not long before a woman in her mid-forties gets on and sits next to Holden, even though the train is empty. Holden finds her quite attractive, despite their age difference, and when she sees the Pencey sticker on his luggage, she reveals that she’s the mother of Ernest Morrow, one of Holden’s classmates. Holden doesn’t like Ernest, who has a habit of snapping his wet towel at people in the dorm, and he lies to the woman, saying his name is Rudolf Schmidt, which is the dorm janitor’s name. They start talking about Ernest, and she admits her son is sensitive, which Holden finds funny. Holden offers her a cigarette, and she accepts. Holden takes an opportunity to look at her, and she ...