The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. J. D. Salinger was an American author who mainly wrote short stories. His most popular and acclaimed work is The Catcher in the Rye, a novel published in 1951. Jerome David Salinger was born on January 1, 1919, and he died on January 27, 2010. His father was a successful Jewish cheese importer, and his mother was Scotch-Irish Catholic. Salinger was a shy and reticent person since his childhood. He belonged to an upper-middle-class family and though he tried and got enrolled in several colleges to complete his graduation, he always flunked the course. He took fictional writing classes at Columbia University and began writing short stories for Story magazine in 1940. During World War II, Salinger joined the U.S. Army’s infantry division and served in combat, including the invasion of Normandy in 1944. The battle at Normandy was one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. Salinger witnessed the slaughtering of thousands of young men at Normandy and that had a deep effect on him. After his return from the battleground, he continued his writing career and in 1951, his first and only novel The Catcher in the Rye was published. Just like Salinger, the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye belongs to upper-class New York City, both flunked out of prep schools, and both find it difficult to communicate with others. Salinger’s horrifying experiences of World War II are expressed in Holden’s mistrusting, cynical view of adult society. The major theme of the novel is adolescent alienation and loss of innocence. The novel has an optimistic ending that suggests that alienation is just a phase. Through this novel, Salinger expressed the trauma of World War II that he considered a blunder of adults. World War I was supposed “the war to end all wars,” but World War II proved that this claim was hollow and phony, just like the ideas that adults continue to force on Holden in the novel.

Characters of The Catcher in the Rye:

Holden Caulfield is the narrator and protagonist of the novel belonging to a rich family. He is not good at studies and continues to move from boarding school to boarding school after being repeatedly expelled. He is a shy and reclusive adolescent teen with a self-destructive side. He is deeply affected by the death of his elder brother Allie who was suffering from leukemia. D. B. Caulfield is the eldest brother of Holden who is a war veteran and now works as a screenwriter in Hollywood. Phoebe Caulfield is the 9-year-old sister of Holden who appears more mature and intelligent than other children of her age. She understands Holden’s mistrust, misanthropy, and sadness and tries to help him. Mr. Antolini is a former English teacher of Holden. Holden stays for a night at Mr. Antolni’s house after running away from his home. He tries to help Holden but fails to win his trust. Ward Stadler is a self-centered, arrogant roommate of Holden at the hostel who bullies him. Carl Luce is a friend of Holden who used to study with him at Wooten. Carl passed the school but Holden failed. Mr. Spencer is Holden’s history teacher at Pencey. Robert Ackley is a classmate and neighbor of Holden at the hostel in Pency. Jane Gallagher was a friend of Holden during their childhood. Holden feels that he loves Jane and when Ward Stadler informs him that he is going on a date with Jane, Holden gets disturbed. Mal Brossard is another classmate of Holden. Ernest Morrow is a classmate of Holden whom he doesn’t like and feels that "the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey.” Sally Hayes is another childhood friend of Holden whom he asks for a date but gets irked by her pretentious mannerism. Faith Cavendish is a popular stripper and prostitute who rejects Holden’s advances. Lillian Simmons is a former girlfriend of Holden’s elder brother D.B. whom Holden tries to avoid because he thinks she is phony.

Summary of The Catcher in the Rye:

The novel begins with a blunt statement by the narrator, “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.” The narrator reveals that he is Holden Caulfield, a sixteen-year-old guy, currently in psychiatric care in a sanitarium in south California. He says that his parents are nice but “touchy as hell.” He mentions his elder brother D. B. Caulfield who was a terrific short story writer but now works as a screenwriter in Hollywood, and continues to visit him every weekend.

The narrator says that he will prefer to talk about the incidences that happened around Christmastime of the previous year. Holden begins his story from his last day at Pencey Prep, an exclusive private school in Pennsylvania. He was recently expelled from the school by Dr. Thurmer for being irresponsible and immature. Before leaving the school, Holden decides to visit Mr. Spencer, his history teacher to say goodbye. Mr. Spencer is a well-meaning old man who advises Holden that he must realize that “life is a game” and one should “play it according to the rules,” but Holden, who has already left four private schools, dismisses much of what Spencer says.

Holden then returns to his hostel room where he meets Robert Ackley, his obnoxious neighbor with a terrible complexion. Holden doesn’t like him for his lack of hygiene, impolite questioning, and mannerisms. His roommate is Ward Stradler, a strongly built handsome adolescent whom Holden likes but feels that Stradler is conceited, arrogant, and a ‘secret slob.’ At his core, Holden seems to want to be Stradlater and thus command power over men and women alike. Stradler asks Holden to write an English composition for him as he is preparing for a date. Holden agrees to write the composition for Stradler and asks who is he planning to date. Stradler reveals he is going with Jane Gallagher. Holden gets distressed by knowing this as Jane used to be his childhood friend and he was infatuated by her. Holden remembers his childhood when he had two close friends Jane Gallagher and Sally Hayes. He remembers that he always loved Jane Gallagher and now he is pensive as he believes that Stradler is dating her only for having sex.

After Stradler goes out, Holden decides to go to New York City with Ackley and Mal Brossard to watch a movie. After returning, Holden writes the composition for Stradler which is about his elder brother Allie’s baseball mitt. He mentions that his brother died of leukemia and he was so sad and angry at his death that he broke all the windows of their garage on that night. When Stradler returns, Holden asks him about his date with Jane. Stradler ignores his queries and starts reading the composition. He gets upset when he notices that Holden didn’t follow the rules for writing the composition which has to be about a place or house. Holden gets annoyed and tears down the composition. He asks again about Stradler’s date with Jane to which Stradler indirectly suggests that he might have had sex with Jher. This enrages Holden and he tries to punch Stradler in the face while calling him a moron. Stadler, being stronger easily overpowers Holden and then knocks him out.

After his fight with Stradler, Holden feels alienated and decides to leave Penecy right then. He decides to go back to New York City where he will first stay at a hotel and then will go to his home as his parents are yet to know that he has been expelled again from the school.

On the train to New York City, Holden meets a middle-aged woman and finds out that she is the mother of a Pencey student, Ernest Morrow. Nobody likes Ernest at Penecy but Holden decides to lie and praises Ernest in front of his mother and tells her how popular and well-respected her son is at Pencey. Holden starts flirting with Ernest’s mother and invites her to have a drink with him at the club car but she refuses. In New York, he rents a room at Edmond Hotel but soon starts feeling lonely. He thinks of calling Jane Gallagher but fails to gather enough courage. Thinking about Jane, who probably had sex with Stradler, Holden decides to call Faith Cavendish, a former burlesque stripper and reputed prostitute, but she rejects his advances. He then visits the nightclub of the hotel where he dances with Bernice Krebs, a blonde woman from Seattle who is vacationing in New York with several friends. Bernice is not at all interested in Holden and tries to evade him but Holden continues to pursue her as he thinks she is an excellent dancer. Soon he gets tired of Bernice and decides to visit a piano club where he used to go with her eldest brother D. B. He sees Lillian Simmons, his brother’s former girlfriend. He decides to leave the club as he wishes to avoid being noticed by Lillian who he thinks, is a phony person. When he returns to the hotel, the elevator attendant offers him a prostitute for entertainment. Holden was already looking for a prostitute and thus he agrees. Sunny, a young prostitute visits his room but Holden gets nervous after seeing her and refuses to have sex with her. He asks her to go back but Sunny demands ten dollars for her charge. Holden offers her five dollars as he didn’t have any sex with her. Sunny goes out but soon returns with the elevator attendant and demands five dollars more. Holden argues that he already paid according to the deal but the elevator attendant bullies him and punches him in his stomach while Sunny robs the money from his pocket. Holden feels severe pain and imagines shooting the elevator attendant and killing him. He feels so humiliated that he considers jumping out of the window to commit suicide.

The next day, Holden decides to call Sally Hayes and invites her to a matinee show. During the show, Sally mentions that she just saw a boy whom she knows. Holden gets pestered and tells her to go over and give the boy “a big soul kiss.” When Sally goes to talk with the boy, Holden feels disgusted at how phony the conversation is. Later on, he takes Sally to ice skating and then they decide to take lunch. During lunch, Holden tells her that he is fed up with everything around him and suggests that they run away together to New England, where they can live in a cabin in the woods. Sally rejects his proposal and Holden insults her and calls her pretentious and a “royal pain in the ass.” Sally decides to run away.

After the failed date, Holden decides to call one of his old friends Carl Luce with whom he studied at Wooton School. While Holden failed the school exam, Carl passed and then got admission to Columbia University. Carl meets him at Wicker Bar. Carl soon becomes annoyed at Holden for having a “typical Caulfield conversation”—one that is preoccupied with sex. He chastises Holden for repeatedly failing at school and says that he thinks Holden is immature and childish. He suggests that Holden should see a psychiatrist. Carl leaves him while Holden continues to drink at Wicker Bar. Soon he starts feeling lonely and weak. He leaves the bar and starts wandering around Central Park. He thinks he is sick and suffering from pneumonia. He fears he may die soon and thus, he decides to go to his home to meet Phoebe, his nine years old sister whom he loves so much.

He sneaks into the house while evading his parents and awakens Phoebe. She gets startled at seeing him and asks how he returned from Penecy. When Holden informs her that he has been expelled, she gets pensive and says their father will kill him. He tells her he might go out to a ranch in Colorado, but she dismisses his idea as foolish.

Holden tells her that he does not like Penecy because it is a phony school. Phoebe then asks if he likes anything in the world? Holden says that he liked Allie who is no more. He says he thinks he likes the nuns at Grand Central and a boy at Elkton Hills who committed suicide. He tells her that he would like to be a catcher in the rye, taking care of young children at the edge of a cliff. He would come out of somewhere and always catch them just before they fell off the edge. After some time, his parents return home but Holden evades them again and sneaks out of the house. He decides to spend the night with Mr. Antolini, his former English teacher at Elkton Hills. Mr. Antolini gets startled at seeing him at his home. When he reveals that he has been expelled from Penecy too, Mr. Antolini tells Holden that he is headed for a serious fall and that he is the type who may die nobly for a highly unworthy cause. He quotes Wilhelm Stekel: “The mark of an 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.” Holden is not interested in Mr. Antolini’s lecture and he soon falls asleep on the couch. After some time, he suddenly wakes up and finds Mr. Antolini with his hand on Holden’s head. Holden finds it inappropriate and feels that Mr. Antolini is trying to sexually abuse him. He says that he has to take his luggage from Grand Central Station and he will return soon. However, Holden spends the night at the station. The next morning, he sends a note to Phoebe at school, telling her to meet him for lunch. He feels very pensive and distressed and fears that he will die soon. He is very weak and falls unconscious due to diarrhea. After gaining consciousness back, he meets Phoebe and tells her that he is going away. Phoebe insists that she will come with him but Holden refuses to and Phoebe gets angry. He then buys Phoebe a ticket for the carousel at the nearby zoo, and as he watches her, he begins to cry.

Holden says that he doesn’t remember what happened next as he fell unconscious again and when he woke up, he found himself in the sanitarium. He says that people wonder if he will pursue his education and if will he improve? Holden ends the story by mentioning that he is already missing Strandler, Ackley, and Mal Brossard, suggesting that he is optimistic about the future.

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