Insight Text Guide
Scott Hurley
The Catcher
in the Rye
J. D. Salinger
© Insight Publications 2010
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Hurley, Scott.
J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye / Scott Hurley.
1st ed.
9781921088834 (pbk.)
Insight text guides
Bibliography.
For secondary school age.
Salinger, J. D. (Jerome David), 1919- . The Catcher in the Rye.
Salinger, J. D. (Jerome David), 1919- --Criticism and interpretation.
813.54
© Insight Publications 2010
contents
Character map
Overview
iv
1
About the author
1
Synopsis
1
Character summaries
4
Background & context
7
Genre, structure & language
9
Chapter-by-chapter analysis
13
Characters & relationships
34
Themes, ideas & values
42
Different interpretations
55
Questions & answers
61
Sample answer
66
References & reading
68
© Insight Publications 2010
iv
ChARACT
ARACTeR mAp
Jane Gallagher
A girl Holden
was friends with
in Maine and
whom he idolises.
Her date with
Stradlater sends
Holden into a
spiral of anxiety
and depression.
Ward Stradlater
Holden’s
roommate;
conceited
and sexually
predatory.
Holden attacks
him over Jane.
Allie Caulfield
Holden’s
dead younger
brother, whom
Holden reveres
and sometimes
talks to.
Phoebe Caulfield
Holden’s ten-yearold sister, whom he
loves; he visits her
at home on Sunday
night, and at school
the next morning.
Robert Ackley
Unhygienic boy
from Holden’s
school with
a vindictive
personality.
Mr Spencer
Holden’s history
teacher who
attempts to
advise him.
Mrs Morrow
Mother of a
Pencey student
whom Holden
chats up on the
train to New
York.
Maurice
Sunny’s
pimp; beats
and swindles
Holden.
Holden Caulfield
The sixteen-year-old
protagonist who
spends three days
in New York hiding
from his parents,
meeting friends,
observing society
and sinking deeper
into depression.
Sunny
The young
prostitute
Holden hires,
but cannot
proceed with.
Mr Antolini
Holden’s favourite
teacher from a previous
school. Gives Holden
advice and a place to
sleep but then makes
what Holden thinks is a
homosexual pass.
Two Nuns
Holden has
a pleasant
conversation
with them in a
coffee shop.
Bernice, Marty
and Laverne
Three women from
Seattle with whom
Holden dances.
D.B. Caulfield
Holden’s older
brother, a
writer working
in Hollywood,
to Holden’s
disapproval.
Carl Luce
Pretentious student
from one of
Holden’s previous
schools.
Sally Hayes
A shallow girl
Holden used to
date. He goes out
with her on Sunday
afternoon.
© Insight Publications 2010
1
OVERVIEW
About the author
Jerome David Salinger was born in New York City in 1919. Like Holden
Caulfield, his most famous creation, Salinger had a privileged upbringing,
attending public schools in Manhattan during his early years but then
switching to private ones. He served in the army during World War II,
in the D-Day landing and the bloody ‘Battle of the Bulge’ campaign. A
fluent German speaker, he interrogated German prisoners of war; he also
experienced a newly liberated concentration camp. At the end of the
war he was treated for combat-related stress, but remained in Europe to
partake in the postwar ‘de-Nazification’ process.
The Catcher in the Rye came out in 1951 and was an immediate
critical and commercial success. By the late fifties it had begun to take
on ‘classic’ status, but unlike many other literary classics it continues to
sell extraordinarily well, reputedly 250,000 copies each year. Over the
next decade, Salinger published a collection of short stories, Nine Stories
(1953), as well as two further volumes, each containing two novellas:
Franny and Zooey (1961) and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters
and Seymour: an Introduction (1963). He has lived in the small town of
Cornish, New Hampshire since 1953. Nearly as famous for being a recluse
as he is for writing The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger has granted very few
interviews and has had no works appear since a novella, Hapworth 16,
1924, came out in the New Yorker magazine in 1965.
Synopsis
The Catcher in the Rye covers three days in the life of Holden Caulfield,
a sixteen-year-old from an affluent family in New York City. Holden
tells us the story months later from some kind of hospital in California.
On the Saturday afternoon when the action begins, a December day
in 1949, Holden has recently been asked not to return to Pencey, his
© Insight Publications 2010
2
expensive private school, after the coming Christmas break. He has
previously failed out of two other schools. Saying farewell to Mr Spencer,
his history teacher, that afternoon, Holden cannot explain his inability
to apply himself at Pencey. Back in his dorm with two other students,
Robert Ackley and Ward Stradlater, the latter his roommate, Holden
discovers that Stradlater is going on a date with Jane Gallagher, a girl
whom Holden spent quite a bit of time with two summers earlier. The
news makes Holden very anxious, both out of his affection for Jane and
his knowledge that Stradlater is unscrupulous on a date. When Stradlater
returns, Holden grills him about what happened before attacking him.
After their fight, which Holden loses, he decides to return to New York
that night. He will stay in a hotel for a few days before returning to the
family apartment on the date he is expected – after his parents have found
out about his dismissal from Pencey.
On the train from Pennsylvania, Holden talks to the mother of one of
the boys at Pencey. The elaborate web of lies he weaves about her son is a
kind of attempted seduction of the older woman. The rest of The Catcher
in the Rye finds him either wandering around New York City or meeting
up with various people met at random or previously telephoned. Arriving
at around midnight, Holden tries to arrange a date with an ‘easy’ girl
called Faith; he asks two cab drivers to have a drink with him; he goes to
two nightclubs. All of this occurs without Holden ever seeming to tire. He
is driven by a desperate need not to be alone. When alone, he becomes
anxious about Jane and depressed about life. He thinks about his dead
brother Allie and his little sister Phoebe, whom he would like to see, but
cannot, because it would mean revealing himself to his parents. The night
ends with a distracted Holden arranging a tryst with a prostitute called
Sunny. Not only is he unable to have sex with her, but her pimp Maurice
extorts money from Holden before striking him.
The next day Holden meets two nuns. He buys a record for Phoebe
and looks for her in Central Park, unsuccessfully. He also goes to the
theatre with Sally Hayes, a girl he has dated in the past. It is not a
success; Holden is repelled by her shallowness, yet concocts a fantasy
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3
about running away with her to live in the woods. He later has a drink
with Carl Luce, a past acquaintance. It too goes poorly, and Holden gets
very drunk. He stumbles back to Central Park, drunk, broke, temporarily
homeless and terribly depressed. Throughout this second day, Holden
realises that the life he has lived in New York City doesn’t appeal to him
anymore. He continues to think about his dead brother and sinks deeper
into depression. Finally he looks for some comfort from his sister Phoebe,
sneaking into the family apartment to visit her. Holden feels happy with
her until she realises that he has been kicked out of school again. They
have a long talk, in which Holden further realises that beyond her and the
memory of their dead brother, nothing in life holds much interest for him.
When his parents return, Holden must sneak out of the apartment, but
not before borrowing money from Phoebe and breaking down in tears.
Holden goes to the apartment of Mr Antolini, the English teacher at
one of his previous schools. Holden is woken by the feel of Mr Antolini’s
hand on his head. Reading this as a ‘pass’, Holden flees the apartment to
spend what remains of the night on a bench at Grand Central Station. The
next day Holden feels physically ill and mentally unhinged. He seems
to be suffering from a mental breakdown, imagining that he is about to
disappear and calling on his dead brother Allie to keep him from doing
so. He decides to leave New York forever, without luggage or money, only
staying long enough to say goodbye to Phoebe and return her money.
Waiting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Holden passes out.
When Phoebe arrives with a suitcase, intending to come with him,
he blows up in anger at her, and suddenly decides that he is not going
to go anywhere. His story about the events of these three days ends with
Holden having to win back the favour of the now angry Phoebe. He
guides her into Central Park, first to the zoo and then to the carrousel,
where he is truly happy watching her. The final chapter returns to the
present. From his sanatorium, Holden tells us that he is not going to tell
us any more; nor can he guarantee that he will finally start ‘applying’
himself when he starts at a new school in the autumn.
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Character summaries
Holden Caulfield: The sixteen-year-old narrator whose adventures we
follow during his three days in New York. Holden is a funny, sarcastic
and brutally honest observer. He is also deeply troubled. Over the course
of the novel he sinks deeper into depression, until he seems to be in the
throes of a nervous breakdown in the penultimate chapters.
Allie: ‘He’s dead now … He was two years younger than I was, but
he was about fifty times as intelligent’ (p.33); ‘he never got sore about
anything’ (p.89). Holden’s younger brother, who died when Holden
was thirteen, Allie was brilliant and forgiving, a kind of Christ figure for
Holden, who has not gotten over the death. Holden thinks about Allie
throughout the novel.
Phoebe: ‘You never saw a little kid so pretty and smart in your whole
life’ (p.60). Holden’s ten-year-old sister; she is bright, like Allie, but
mercurial, like Holden. His relationship with her is the most important in
the novel. Holden thinks about Phoebe quite a bit before going to see her
on Sunday night. His feelings of protectiveness about her and the drama
the siblings enact on Monday, when Phoebe tries to come with Holden
out west, create the climax of the novel.
D.B.: ‘Now he’s out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute’ (p.1).
Holden’s older brother, who shares some attributes of the book’s author,
J. D. Salinger: a writer of short stories and a veteran of the Normandy
landing in World War II. D.B. has become a disappointment to Holden
in the way he has ‘prostituted’ himself by going to Hollywood to write
screenplays. He only appears in references in the novel, but Holden often
thinks about him.
Mr and Mrs Caulfield: ‘my mother … She’s nervous as hell. Half the
time she’s up all night smoking cigarettes’ (p.143). The latter is the only
one to appear, albeit briefly, in a late chapter, but Holden’s worry about
what his parents will think about his failing out of Pencey accounts for
some of his mental distress.
Mr Spencer: ‘I’d like to put some sense in that head of yours, boy.
I’m trying to help you’ (p.13). Holden’s elderly history teacher at Pencey.
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He shows concern for Holden’s inability to focus at school, but his ‘dirty
trick’ of making Holden read aloud his failing test exam during their
interview renders Holden unable to heed any of his advice.
Robert Ackley: ‘he had a terrible personality. He was also sort of
a nasty guy’ (p.17). A student at Pencey in the room next to Holden’s,
Ackley hates everyone and is disliked in turn. Holden teases him, but
tries to include Ackley in his evening entertainment, a gesture that is not
repaid. When Holden needs sympathy later that evening, Ackley treats
him coldly.
Ward Stradlater: ‘You take … a guy that thinks he’s a real hot-shot …
Just because they’re crazy about themself, they think you’re crazy about
them, too’ (p.24). Holden’s conceited, manipulative, sexually predatory
roommate. His going on a date with Jane Gallagher sends Holden into a
spiral of anxiety and depression. Holden’s fight with Stradlater precipitates
Holden’s decision to leave Pencey early.
Jane Gallagher: ‘I kept thinking about Jane, and about Stradlater
having a date with her and all. It made me so nervous I nearly went
crazy’ (p.29). A girl his age whom Holden spent a lot of time with two
summers previously, and with whom he seems to be in love, Jane never
appears in the book.
Faith Cavendish: ‘this girl that wasn’t exactly a whore or anything but
that didn’t mind doing it once in a while’ (p.57). An ex-burlesque dancer,
older than Holden, whose telephone number he has been given. He tries
to arrange a date with her on the first night in New York.
Bernice, Marty and Laverne: ‘The whole three of them kept looking
for movie stars the whole time’ (p.67). Three women (older than Holden)
visiting New York from Seattle. Holden buys them drinks and dances with
them at a nightclub in an effort to keep from being alone. The way they
keep looking for movie stars and their plans to see the Christmas show at
Radio City Music Hall make Holden feel depressed.
Horwitz: ‘If you was a fish, Mother Nature’d take care of you, wouldn’t
she?’ (p.76). A touchy cab driver. Holden gets into a heated discussion
with him about what becomes of the ducks and fish in the little pond in
Central Park during the winter.
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Lillian Simmons: ‘the Navy guy didn’t like her much, even though
he was dating her. And I didn’t like her much. Nobody did’ (p.79). An
ex-girlfriend of Holden’s older brother D.B. who ruins Holden’s trip to a
nightclub by inviting him to have a drink with her and her date.
Maurice: ‘I told him he was a goddam dirty moron’ (p.93). The elevator
operator at the Edmont Hotel and a pimp. He first arranges for Holden’s
‘throw’ with Sunny and then extorts from him more money than was
arranged. Physically intimidating and sadistic, he also punches Holden.
Sunny: ‘She was very nervous, for a prostitute … I think it was because
she was young as hell. She was around my age’ (p.85). A young prostitute;
she is crude, childlike, and as Holden describes her, a bit ‘spooky’. She
becomes both offended and slightly aggressive when Holden will not
have sex with her, even after he agrees to pay her anyway.
Two Nuns: ‘I said I’d enjoyed talking to them a lot, too. I meant it, too’
(p.101). On Sunday morning Holden meets these two older women, on
their way to teach at a convent school in northern Manhattan. Holden,
taken by their altruism, continues to think about them. He discusses
Romeo and Juliet with one of them.
Sally Hayes: ‘I didn’t even like her much, and all of a sudden I felt like
I was in love with her and wanted to marry her’ (p.112). A girl Holden’s
age whom he sometimes dates in New York, Sally comes out with him on
Sunday afternoon. She is beautiful but shallow.
Carl Luce: ‘He was strictly a pain in the ass, but he certainly had
a good vocabulary’ (p.134). An old schoolmate of Holden’s, about
three years older, with whom he has a drink on Sunday night. Luce is
pretentious, aloof and superior, and will not discuss any of the things
Holden wants to talk about.
Mr Antolini: ‘He was about the best teacher I ever had, Mr Antolini’
(p.157); ‘He was trying to act very goddam casual and cool and all, but
he wasn’t any too goddam cool’ (p.173). Holden’s English teacher from
one of his previous schools, Mr Antolini, about D.B.’s age, is very bright
and sophisticated. He gives Holden some well-meant advice when he
comes to sleep on his couch, but he makes what Holden considers a pass
at him, sending the already confused young man fleeing into the night.
© Insight Publications 2010