The Catcher in The Rye

Chap 1:
-Holden is introduced
-Narrator calls D.B prostitute
-Pencey Prep is introduced → school for reformed boys
-Selma Thurmer is the headmaster's daughter who showed up to the games quite often. She had a big
nose and her nails were all bitten down and bleedy looking. She had false eyelashes as well.
-Holden doesn't care about leaving pencey, he doesn't think much of Pencey. He thinks that it is a
school full of phonies. But he still feels a little bothered about leaving without “feel[ing] some kind of
goody-by” (p.16)
-Watching the football game holden gets this sensation by remembering a day when he and a couple of
Pencey boys were throwing a football, which is a memory vivid enough to give Holden some kind of
true feeling for the place.
-Holden just returned from New York City and lost equipment for fencing team on subway

Chap 2:
-Holden visits old Spencer(his history teacher) because old spencer gave him a letter telling him to pay
him a visit.
-Holden doesn't like the smell of Vicks, Mr. Spencer's old bathrobe with his old man's chest sticking
out, how he can't throw what he is reading on the nearby table, and the lecture he is giving him
-Holden doesn't want to hurt his feelings, so he listens to his lecture.
-Holden tells Mr. Spence he is just going through a phase .... “ I'm just going through a phase right now.
Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?”(p.15)

Chap 3:
-Holden tells story about Ossenburger, an alumni after whom his dorm is named. This story catches the
absurdities of Pencey. Mr. Ossenburger, who made his riches in the undertaking buisiness came back to
the school and made a speech about how God helped him succeed, when a kid interupted his speech
with a fart. Holden found this funny, and also said Ossenburger was a phony and his speech wasn't
worth listening to anyway.
-Holden istickled by his new red hunting hat which he bought earlier that day in New York.
-Robert Ackley enters the room uninvited and interupts Holden's reading by walking around the room,
picks up things and puts them back in the wrong place and laughs at Holden's expense.
-Ackley hates mostly everyone, but Holden accepts him to a certain degree by unpacking his scissors
so Ackley can cut his nails.
-Ackley leaves room when Stradlater enters to prepare for a date dispite the fact Stradlater gives him a
cevil 'hello'.
-Robert Ackley has dirty ears, has a lot of acne, and has no manners.

Chap 4:
-Ackley hates Stradlater because he told him to brush his teeth. He says Stradlater is too full of himself.
-Stradlater is a secret slob because he has a “crumby” razor.
-Stradlater asks Holden to write English composition for him.
-Holden finds out that Jane Gallagher is Stradlatersdate. Holden cares a great deal for Jane, and they
used to have a close friendship, playing checkers all the time when their families were summer
neighbors. Jane is said to always keep her kings in the back row. Stradlater is only interested in hearing
the “sexy' things about Jane. He is so sexually experienced, and Holden is nervous.
-Holden considers going downstairs to say hello to Jane, but he doesn't and tells Stradlater to give her
his regards.
-Stradlater borrows Holden's jacket although holden does not want him to since he is worried he will
stretch out the shoulders.

Chap. 5:
-Steak dinner at Pencey on Saturday night consists of very lumpy mashed potatoes, dry steak you could
hardly cut, and brown Betty for dessert.
-Holden decides to take bus into town with his friend Mal Brossard to watch a “lousy movie” and get a
burger. He decides to invite Ackley, and surprisingly Ackley does not complain, since he complains
about everyone.
-They don't watch a movie because Mal and Ackley have already seen the movie playing, so the boys
just have hamburgers and play pinball.
-After returning and Holden, kicking Ackley out of his dorm, he decides to write Stradlaters essay on
his brothers baseball mitt, Allie.
-Allie is Holden's younger brother, who died of leukemia. He would write poems on his baseball mitt in
green ink so that he had something to read when he was bored in the outfield.
-The night Allie died, holden slept out in the garage and punched out all the windows.

Chap. 6:
-Holden can hardly contain himself of his anticipation about Stradlater's date with Jane.
-Stradlater does not offer any information about the date, and Holden tried to conceal his concern.
-When Stradlater sees the essay, he complains about the subject.
-Holden finally asks about the date and isn't happy to hear that Stradlater and Jane “just sat in the
goddam car” all night, and asks if he “gave her the time”, and Stradlater dances around the question.
-This is more than Holden can take, and he tries to give him a sock in the face. Holden ends up taking
the harder punch.
-Stradlater is nervous, and Holden just lays there on the floor for a while calling him a moron.
-Holden digs under his bed to find his hunting hat and puts it on, and looks at himself in the mirror.

“You never saw such gore in your life... It partly scared me and it partly fascinated me. All that blood
and all sort of made me look tough. I'd only been in about two fights in my life, and I lost both of them.
I'm not too tough. I'm a pacifist, if you want to know the truth.” (p.45-46)

Chap. 7:
-Holden goes to Ackley's room and asks him if he wants to play Canasta.
-Holden keeps on calling Ackley a Prince
-Holden is still worried about what Stradlater did with Jane and recalls a time where he double dated
with him and stradlater almost gave a girl the time in the back of the car, by putting on a “nice guy” act.
-Holden keeps on saying that he felt “lonsome” and rotten.
-Holden decides to go to New York city instead of leaving school wednesday.
-Holden is packing and notices a pair or ice skates his mother had recently sent him. “I had to pack
these brand-new ice skates my mother had just practically just sent me a couple days before. That
depressed me. I could see my mother going in Splauding's and asking the salesman a million dopey
questions – and here I was getting the ax again.” (p.52) ... “almost everytime somebody gives me a
present I feel sad” (p.52)

** quote from site **

Chap.8:
-Holden who is still bloody from holden's punch, boards a late train to New York, which he likes doing
because he likes late trains.
-A woman notices the Pencey sticker on his suitcase and asks if he knows Ernest Morrow. Holden
thinks to himself how he is 'the biggesdt bastard that even went to Pencey” (p.54), but lies to Mrs.
Morrow telling her that Ernest is shy and extremely popular, and was a unanimous choice for class
president, though he was too modest to nominate himself.
-He tells her his name is Rudolf Schmidt.
-He tells a lie about leaving early because he had a brain tumour.

“Then I started reading this timetable I had in my pocket. Just to stop lying. Once I get started, I can go
on for hours if I feel like it. No kidding. Hours.” (p.58)

Chap.9:
-Holden goes to phonebooth and contemplates on calling D.B, Phoebe or his former love Sally Hayes.
-Holden can't call D.B because he's in hollywood.
-Holden can'tcall Phoebe because she wouldn't be awake
-Holden can't call Jane Galllagher because she's not yet on vacation.
-Sally and Holden used to date, and she wrote him this corny letter telling him to come over and
decorate the Christmas tree. He couldn't call her because he was scared her mother would pick up who
was close to his mother and would tell him that he was in town.
– Holden thought of calling Carl Luce, a boy from the Whooton School, but he didn't like him so
much.
– Holden got into a cab and asked the driver about the ducks.

"'You know those ducks in that lagoon right near Central Park South? That little lake? By any chance,
do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over? Do you happen to know,
by any chance?'" Chapter 9, pg. 60

-Holden gets dropped off at the Edmont hotel on the west side of the city, because he doesn't want to be
seen on the east side, 'cause he may run into somebody he knows.
-He asks the cab drive to get cocktails.
-The bellboy is an old man with a comb-over, "a gorgeous job for a guy around sixty-five years old."
(pg. 61)
-Holden notices a boy and a girl squirting water at each other, and is fascinated by this.
-"Sometimes I can think of very crumby stuff I wouldn't mind doing if the opportunity came up. I can
even see how it might be quite a lot of fun, in a crumby way, and if you were both sort of drunk and all,
to get a girl and squirt water or something all over each other's face. The thing is, though, I don't like
the idea. It stinks, if you analyze it." Chapter 9, pg. 62

-Holden calls Fatih Cavendish a woman a guy from Princeton said “didn't mind doing it once and
while...”(p.63)

Chap 10:
-Holden thinks about calling his little sister Phoebe again and says skinny kid and smart beyond her
years. He doesn't try because he knows his mother would know its him.. “She's psychic” (p.67)
-Holden goes down to the lavender room and meets Bernice, Marty and Laverne, who are 3 dull
women around 30 years old visiting from Seattle hoping to see a famous new yorker.
-Holden orders Scotch and a soda but was declined and only took the soda.
-Holden finally gets Bernice, the blonde one and the best looking one to dance. He says she's a great
dancer.
-He then tries to get them to talk, but they keep on looking for celebrities.
-He buys them drinks, and after they leave to go to bed leaving holden with the bill and alone.

Chap.11:
-Holden sits on vomity looking lobby chair and thinks of Jane Gallagher and how they played checkers
and sports like tennis and golf all summer.
-p.77 → relationship he had with Jane

-Holden decides to go to Ernie's, a place where D.B used to go before he went to hollywood.
-Holden talks about the guy who plays the piano
-"He's so good he's almost corny, in fact. I don't exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it. I
certainly like to hear him play, but sometimes you feel like turning his goddam piano over. I think it's
because sometimes when he plays, he sounds like the kind of guy that won't talk to you unless you're a
big shot." (80)

Chap 12:
-Holden asks Horwitz, the cab driver, where the ducks go. He tells them that they live right in the ice
and that they take nutrition through “the goddam seaweed and crap that's in the ice. They got their
pores open the whole time” (83).

“If you was a fish, mother nature would take care of you, wouldn't she? Right? You don't think them
fish would just die when it gets winter, do ya?” ((83) ← question about growing up

-Holden asks him to join him for drinks, but the driver declines. “I ain't got no time for liquor, bud”(83)
-Ernie's was full of “prep school jerks and college jerks” (83), and they gave him the worst table in the
joint.
-Holden comments on boring conversations around him → Joe Yale-looking guy giving a girl a feel
under the table while telling her about some guy in his dorm that had eaten a whole bottle of aspirin
and nearly committed suicide.
-Holden meets Lillian Simmons, a girl D.B used to go around with and strictly a phony. She asks about
D.B, and asks holden to join her and her navy guy date, but he declines and leaves.

Chap. 13:
-Holden walks 41 blocks back to the hotel because he's tired of cabs.
-Holden reflects on his “yellowness” because a guy at Pencey stole his gloves, and said if he were to
find out who did it, he wouldn't have “taken a sock at him”, but would've just gotten the gloves.
-"I hate fist fights. I don't mind getting hit so much- - although I'm not crazy about it, naturally - but
what scares me most in a fist fight is the guy's face. I can't stand looking at the other guy's face, is my
trouble. It wouldn't be so bad if you could both be blindfolded or something. It's a funny kind of
yellowness, when you come to think of it, but it's yellowness, all right. I'm not kidding myself." (p.90)

-The elevator man asks him if he's interested “in a little tail t'night?”(p.91) and holden says yes thinking
it'll be good practice for marriage. The guy says 5 bucks a throw, 15 t'il noon.
-It's at this point that he blurts out what's pretty clear from his behavior: "If you want to know the truth,
I'm a virgin. I really am. I've had quite a few opportunities to lose my virginity and all, but I've never
got around to it yet." Chapter 13, pg. 92

-He tells Sunny his name is Jim Steele.. just like he told the 3 girls at the bar.
-Holden tells Sunny he's had a major operation on his clavichord.
-The prostitute claims Holden owes her a 10 instead of the five he handed her.

-"She was a pretty spooky kid. Even with that little bitty voice she had, she could sort of scare you a
little bit. If she'd been a big old prostitute, with a lot of makeup on her face and all, she wouldn't have
been half as spooky." Chapter 13, pg. 98

Chap.14:
-Holden talks out loud to his brother about meeting him in front of Bobby Fallon's house, because him
and Bobby were going over to Lake Sedebego on their bikes with BB guns and their lunches, and told
Allie he couldn't come.
-This turns into an attempt at prayer, though Holden is "sort of an atheist" (pg. 99), and can't really
muster the proper enthusiasm.
-Maurice and Sunny knock on the door, and Maurice demands the money. He ends up flicking holden
in the vulnerable part of his pijama pants and a solid slug in the stomach.
-They take the five dollars out of his wallet and leave.
-Holden pretends he has a bullet in his gut.
-This imagination is hardly his own: "The goddam movies. They can ruin you. I'm not kidding."
Chapter 14, pg. 104

Chap. 15:
-Holden thinks about calling Old Jane, but decides to call up Sally Hayes.
-He used to think she was intelligent since she knew a lot about plays and stuff, and since Holden
always wanted to think that everyone he was necking with was intelligent, but he claims that “I'd have
found out sooner if we hadn't necked so damn much.”(p.105)
-Holden is immidiately annoyed when she used the word “grand”, but then they “chewed the fat” and
she rants on about all the boys who are desperately hoping to take her on a date.
-Holden has time to kill so he stows his bags in a locker at the train station and heads off for some
breakfast.
-Holden says he's skinny because he's not fond of eating much besides an occasional Swiss cheese
sandwich and a malted milk. Today, however, he orders a big greasy breakfast at a sandwich bar.
-At Elkton Hills, there was a boy, Dick Slagle who Holden roomed with who would always put his
suitcases under the bed instead of on the rack because he wanted everyone to think that Holden's
suitcases were his. He was always saying snotty things about his suitcases, saying they were too
bourgeois.
-Holden met nuns that were school teachers from Chicago and they were going to start teaching at
some convent on 168th street.
-Holden gives them ten bucks after he asks the nun who was carrying the basket if she was collecting
donations. She wasn't but he gave it to her anyway. Later when they leave, he feels sorry he only gave
them ten dollars.
-Holden speaks to the one who teaches english about certain books, like Romeo and Juliet.

Chap. 16:
-Holden is finished his lunch at 12 and has to meet up with Sally under the clock at Biltomore at 2
o'clock, so he decides to go on Broadway and find a record store where he could buy Phoebe a “Little
Shirley Beans” record by Estelle Fletcher.
-He tried to buy the record off of a boy at Pencey on the second floor but he wouldn't let him.
-Holden sees a boy walking on the street next to the curb, his parents not noticing, and singing “If I
body catch a body coming through the Rye”(115)... This made Holden feel better.
-Holden calls Jane, but her mother picks up so he hangs up before he says anything.
-Holden bought two orchestra seats for I Know My Love, and only bought them because he know Sally
“would start drooling all over the place when I told her I had tickers for that, because the Lunts were in
it and all.”(p.116) because she likes shows that were “supposed to be very sophisticated and dry and
all.”(p.117)
-Holden says he hardly listens to plays because he's always worried about whether the actor is going to
do something phony every minute. He also says how you can just tell when an actor knows he's good.
→ D.B took him and Phoebe to see Sir Laurence Olivier in Hamlet.
-Holden heads over to Central Park with record in hand hoping to find Phoebe rollerskating near the
bandstand beside the Mall.
-He sees a girl who looks around her age and asks her if she knows where Phoebe is. She suggests the
Museum of Natural History but Holden realises its Sunday. He ties the little girls skates for her
though.

-Holden reflects on how much he loves the museum because it never changes everytime he went there
as a little kid.

"Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big
glass cases and just leave them alone. I know that's impossible, but it's too bad anyway." Chapter 16,
pg. 122

-Holden enters the museum and suddenly doesn't feel excited to be there, and finds that he just waisted
a bunch of time and effort walking across the park to the museum.

Chap.17:
-Holden describes how he roomed with this boy named Harris Macklin who was intelligent, but was
such a bore. He had a raspy voice, and he never stopped talking. But one thing he could do was whistle
everything.
-Holden sees Sally and thinks she is so beautiful, he could've married her right then and there.
-In the cab Holden starts giving Sally the time, and says that he loves her, and she says the same. In the
same breath she tells him to get a more stylish haircut.
-Holden is annoyed by the boy Sally meets because he thinks that he is strictly an Ivy League Snob.
Him and Sally keep name-drop and ignore Holden's presence.
-Sally asks Holden if he wants to go ice skating at Radio City, and Holden knows its only because she
wanted to wear those short little skating outfits that showed off her butt.
-Holden and Sally go inside for a drink, and Holden asks her if she ever gets fed up and whether she
hates school. He tries to talk to her seriously to see if she's serious and real.
-Holden talks about boy school.
-"'It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be
able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the
football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks
together in these dirty little goddam cliques.'"(131)
-Holden gets worked up and invites her to flee with him to Massachusetts or Vermont, and Sally tries to
let Holden down slowly.
-Holden tells her that she gives him a royal pain in the ass.

Chap. 18:
-Holden remembers Jane after the incident, since he always remembers Jane after dealing with phony
people, because he is her sense of a real person. He wants to call Jane and maybe take her dancing or
something, but she's not home.
-Holden calls up Carl Luce, “one of those very intellectual guys”(p.136), who graduated from the
Whooton School after Holden left and told him to meet him at the Wicker Bar.
-Holden talks about how girls call guys who are bastards people with an inferior complex.
-To pass the time, Holden goes to a movie at the Radio City, where there is a show beforehand.
-Holden talks about how phony the actors who are angels holding crucifixes and singing “come all yee
faithful” are, and how Jesus would find it phony too.
“Old Jesus probably would've puked if he could see it.”(137)
-The only thing he liked was the guy playing the kettle drums in the orchestra because he's the best
drummer he's ever seen, and he never looks bored when its his turn to play.
-Holden notices that the lady next to him is bawling her eyes out at the movie, but is a phony because
she seems to nice to be crying but yet she won't take the kid she's with to the washroom.
-Holden finds war pointless and dislikes it. He finds there are just as many bad guys on each side. He
hates to watch suffering and loss of innocence, so he states how he would rather die.

“I swear, if there's ever another war, they'd better just stick me in front of a firing squad” (p.141) or
“”If there's another war I swear to god I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it.”(141)

Chap 19:
-The wicker bar is a pompous place where two french girls, Tina and Janine, sing dirty songs.
-Holden meets up with Carl Luce who comes off as a snobby guy, drinking extra dry martinis and has
his first bout homophobia about calling gay men “flits”.
-Carl Luce has experience with sex, and is dating a sculpturess in her late thirties who is apparently
asian. Holden tries to ask more details, but carl gets annoyed.
-Holden tries to explain his problems with his sex life saying how he can't get turned on unless he
really likes the girl, and Carl tells him maybe he should go to a psychoanalyst, like his father.

Chap. 20:
-Holden asks the bartender to ask Valencia (a new singer) to come join him for a drink.
-Holden pictures himself with a bullet in his gut again.
-Holden dropped the record.
-Holden walked to central park and felt so cold and so horrible that he thought he was going to die, so
he decided to go visit Phoebe incase he died.

Chap. 21:
-Holden told the elevator man that he was waiting for the Dickstein's.
-Phoebe doesn't like her middle name, Josephine, so she spelt it Phoebe Weatherfield Caufield on her
notebook.
-Holden's mood changed to more positive when he saw Phoebe and didn't feel so sick anymore. She
was happy to see him and showed affection by putting her arms around him.
-She chatters about the Christmas play she's going to be in, about the movie she saw that afternoon,
about a boy in school she's having a kid-drama with, and she reassures Holden by telling him that their
parents are out a party and won't be back until very late.
-Phoebe tells Holden that their dad is going to kill him, and holden reassures that none of that will
happen. Phoebe doesn't listen and puts her pillow on her head.

Chap. 22:
-Holden takes a quick trip to the livingroom and steals some cigarettes and notices Phoebe still won't
look at him. He pinches her butt.
-Phoebe ask why he got kicked out and Holden explains to her the Phonies he had to deal with.
-Phoebe knows that Holden's problem is more than Pencey Prep, and she tells him that he doesn't like
anything. He refuses to think so, and so she demands to know one thing he likes. Holden has trouble
answering the question because he keeps on thinking about James Castle from Elkton Hills who
wouldn't admit to taking back something he said about this very conceited boy Phil Stabile. He
ultimately jumped out a window.
-Holden finally answers that he likes Allie and that he likes sitting here talking with her. Neither answer
satisfies Phoebe.
-Phoebe asks him what he wants to do with his life and he says he wants to be the catcher in the Rye.

-"'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're 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.'" (p.123)

Chap.23:
-Holden calls up his favorite ex teacher Mr. Antolini, who has heard he has been kicked out of Pencey
and invites him over to his appartment.
-When Holden goes back in Phoebe's room she has the radio on and they dance together. Holden
explains how she is terrific dancer.
-They hear the door, and Holden hides in the closet when Phoebe flicks off the lights.
-Their mother can obviously tell that Phoebe has been awake, and Phoebe explains how she couldn't
sleep, and takes the blame for the cigarette, saying she just took a puff.
-After their mother leaves, Holden is ready to make his own exit. Phoebe gives him all of her Christmas
money, and all of the sudden, Holden is overwhelmed and starts to cry. He gets himself together,
though, gives Phoebe a hug and his favorite red hunting hat, and heads out again into the cold night.

Chap. 24:
-Mr. Antolini lives in a swanky appartment with his wife who is rich.
-Mr. And Mrs. Antolini are always yelling at each other from different rooms.
-Mr. Vinson had intelligence but not much brains
-Mr. Antolini is worried that Holden is headed for a fall, "'a special kind of fall, a horrible kind.'" (pg.
187) He fears that Holden is going to end up alienated and hating everyone by the time he's thirty.
He gives Holden a bunch of advice, most of it to the effect that he needs to stick with school and come
to realize that he's "'not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by
human behavior.'" (pg. 189)
-He leaves the house after he wakes up to find Mr. Antolini trying to make a pass at him.

Chap.25:
-At this point, Holden's at rock bottom. He goes to Grand Central and sleeps on a bench, more
depressed than he's ever been. When he wakes up, he thinks maybe he jumped to conclusions about Mr.
Antolini's behavior, though he's suspicious because he always seems to be the recipient of "perverty
behavior."
-Holden walks through the city.
"I kept walking and walking up Fifth Avenue, without any tie on or anything. Then all of a sudden,
something very spooky started happening. Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the
goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go
down, down, down, and nobody'd ever see me again." Chapter 25, pg. 197

-Holden then thinks of Allie asking him to please not let him disppear. Holden then decides he's not
going back home and he's going to go out West, get a job pumping gas and live in a cabin.

"I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have
any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd
have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a
while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life." Chapter 25, pg. 198

-Before he leaves Holden wants to say bye to Phoebe, so he leaves a note in the principals office for
Phoebe telling her to meet him at the art museum during lunch.

-Holden sees fuck you written at the school in two locations.

-At the museum Holden leads two kids playing hooky to the mummies where he sees fuck you written
again.

-Phoebe shows up with her suitcase and asks if she can go with you. Holden says no, and tells her to
shutup which makes her cry. She throws the red hunting hat at him. He tells her to skip school and
come to the zoo with him and reassures her he's not leaving.

-"The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say
anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them." Chapter 25, pg. 211

Chap.26:

-Holden says people keep on asking him if he'll apply himself when he goes back to school next
september, but he just doesn't know. He also doesn't know what to say to his brother who lives nearby
and visits him and asks him what he thinks about all that's happened to him.

-At the end of his story, all he thinks is that he's a little sorry he told so many people what happened,
and that he sort of misses Stradlater and even Ackley and Maurice. He ends his story by saying, "Don't
ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody." Chapter 25, pg. 214