The Catcher In The Rye Chapter 1 Summary

    Holden Caulfield, the main character in J.D. Salinger's novel, The Catcher In The Rye, feels that he needs to protect people around him, because he failed to protect his brother Allie from death. Holden feels that he has to care for those close to him. He watches over Jane, Phoebe, and even Mrs. Murrow when he meets her on the train. Holden tries to shield these people from distress. He does not want to fail anyone else.

Teenagers often struggles with school due to the difficulty to get good grades and interact with teachers and other students. Holden is at Mr. Spencer’s house because Mr. Spencer wants to

While Phoebe was talking to Holden, he was thinking about something else. Suddenly he told Phoebe what he’d like to be. He mentioned the line, ‘If a body catch a body coming through the rye’ from a poem by Robert Burns. Holden kept picturing little children playing in a big field of rye with nobody big around except him. And he’d catch everyone if they went over the cliff by mistake. He just wanted to do that the whole day, be ‘the catcher in the rye’. Holden sees himself as the preserver of innocence in the field of rye. He wants to save these small innocent children from falling over and losing their lives.

means to him. Suddenly, they hear their parents open the door the apartment. His mother checks on Phoebe. Phoebe loans Holden her Christmas money, which makes Holden cry. He gives her his red hunting cap and leaves the building.

Holden tells Phoebe that what he actually wants to do when he 's older is he wants to be the "catcher in the rye". He tells Phoebe the lyrics to the song that the boy was singing, "If a body, catch a body, coming through the rye." Phoebe corrects him telling him that the song he is referring to is actually a poem, and the correct lyrics are "If a body, meet a body, coming through the rye." He acknowledges her, but he believes he is right, being as he 's the older brother and all. Using the lyrics that he believes are right as his inspiration he creates a fantasy world, making himself the

A few times Holden tells people lies about how he's sick or has something wrong with him to get out of a situation or just to make them feel sorry for him. This time Holden was on the train talking to this woman “"It's me. I have

Although he doesn’t have any friends in this place, he stills wants to have a feeling of leaving and saying goodbye. This is shown when he says “What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of goodbye. I mean I’ve left schools and places before and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. When I leave a place, I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse” (7). Holden doesn’t have any connections to people in this place, and this makes him sad. Constantly feeling abandoned and alone contributes to his feelings of depression. Immediately after leaving his school in the middle of the night without waiting for his brother to pick him up at a later date, Holden asks the cab driver to take him to a bar in New York city. Although he

Holden calls Carl Luce, he graduated at Whooton School after Holden was kicked out of that school. They agree to meet for a drink at the Wicker Bar in the Seton Hotel at 10(pg.177). With not a lot to do, and since he is there already, he goes to a stage show and movie at Radio City Music Hall. He sees the Rockettes and a war film(pg.178). At the bar, Holden manages to get served even though he is underage. When Luce arrives, he tells Holden that he is dating an older woman in her late thirties(pg.189). Carl leaves for a date after having drinks with Holden. Holden stays at the bar and gets very drunk(pg.194). He decides to call Jane Gallagher but calls Sally Hayes instead. She tells him to go home and go to bed(pg.196). Holden heads for Central Park to look for the ducks. Holden reflects on Allie's funeral, which he could not attend because he was in the hospital with his broken hand(pg.201). Holden wants to visit Phoebe at the family apartment. He decides to sneak home and visit Phoebe in case he dies(pg.202). Fortunately, there is a new elevator operator on duty who does

Holden checks into the Edmont Hotel in Manhattan, where he hired a young prostitute named Sunny, but didn’t sleep with her. The scene depicts Holden’s struggle of coming to adulthood. Holden thought that by sleeping with a prostitute would make him a man. However, when he was confronted in the burgeoning sexual situation, he yielded. After all he is still just a kid. “The trouble was, I just didn’t want to do it. I felt more depressed than

4. Why does Holden go to see Mr. Spencer? Why does he regret the visit? To say goodbye to him and Pency and he regrets it

He experiences several moments of panic during his weekend in the city, and these can be traced back to the trauma he felt after Allie’s death. When Holden takes Sally Hayes ice-skating, he goes into a nervous rant, asking her if she ever got “fed up” as in did she ever “get scared that everything was going to go lousy unless she did something” (Salinger 130). Sally doesn’t respond in the way Holden wants, so eventually he loses his temper and upsets her. This anxiety attack was rage induced, and made him erupt at Sally. He reacts differently to his anxiety when he visits Phoebe. Phoebe offers to give him her Christmas money, and Holden “all of a sudden” starts to cry (Salinger 179). He feels overcome with emotions towards Phoebe and himself. Holden’s breakdown in this moving scene signals his growing, frightening awareness of the other sort of intimacy (Bryan 46). Holden comes to the realization that his relationship with Phoebe is the most intimate that he has with anyone. He leaves the house immediately after his breakdown. The anxiety attacks that Holden experiences come at emotional times and make him unable to control his actions. His emotions always bring him back to Allie, and the trauma surrounding Allie causes him to

The next morning, Holden calls Sally Hayes, a girl he used to go out with, and they agree to go to a matinee in the afternoon. While he eats breakfast, he meets two nuns and donates ten dollars to them. He calls Jane Gallagher, but hangs up when her mother picks up. He goes to Central Park to meet his sister phoebe, but one of her classmates tells him that she might be in the Museum of Natural History. He goes to the museum, even though he knows that she’s not there, but then decides against going in and goes to meet Sally

Holden hates those magazines that the steward sells on the train. Holden cites, "I can usually even read one of those dumb stories in a magazine without puking. You know. One of those stories with a lot of phony, lean-jawed guys named David in it, and a lot of phony girls named Linda or Marcia that are always lighting all the goddam Davids' pipes for them" (53). Holden cannot stand that all the stupid same old stories. The ones where there is always a hero and saves someone that is in trouble. After that Holden felt a little down so he decided to pass the time. Holden knows this girl named Sally Hayes. They used to send a lot of time together when they were younger. Holden is bored and decides to give her a call. He calls her and her father answers and then gives the phone to Sally. Sally Hayes picked up the phone and asks, "yes--who is this?" Holden goes on to state, "she was quite a little phony. I'd already told her father who it was" (106). Holden cannot believe that she knows who is calling but asks for no reason. Sally is just trying to play a stupid game that Holden would rather not want to play at any time.

After an unpleasant dinner, Holden gets into a snowball fight with some of the boys. Holden and his friend Mal Brossard decide to see a movie which Holden convinces Mal to let Ackley go with them. As it turns out that Ackley and Mal have seen the movie they decide to eat and play some games before returning to Pencey. Upon returning Mal leaves, leaving Ackley and Holden at his dorm with Ackley talking about girls and popping his pimples. Holden gets him to leave by starting to work on Stradlaters homework to which Holden does not understand and starts writing about his dead brother Allie. Coming home from his date Stradlater arrives and reads Holden's composition and becomes angry that it had nothing to do with the assignment. Holden becomes angry himself and tears the composition up and throws it away. He decides to smoke in the room to annoy Stradlater but the tension between them increase when asked about

Holden makes his way through the bad weather until finally stumbling upon Mr. Spencer’s house. Mrs. Spencer greets him at the door and cheerfully invites him into their house. She makes light conversation and informs Holden that Mr. Spencer is in his room. Holden progresses into the room to uncover what Mr. Spencer wants to talk with him about. Holden was told to sit down on the bed, he compared it to a rock because of the stiff nature of the bed. Mr. Spencer clarifies that he is in fact expelled,