Holden Caulfield is the protagonist and storyteller of the novel Catcher in the Rye. He is sixteen years old and has just been expelled for academic failure from the latest of four institutions – Pencey Prep School in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. Though intelligent and expressive, he narrates his story in a cynical manner, finding unbearable the hypocrisy of the adult world around him. He tries to protect himself from his pain and disappointment by means of that cynicism.
The criticisms that Holden directs towards the people around him are unwittingly aimed at himself, although at times he refuses to admit his mistakes. As the story begins, Holden is standing on a promontory that separates childhood from adulthood and he is unable to negotiate the chasm. This leaves him in a precarious state of emotional breakdown. In Chapters I and II, he relates his story from a rest home or sanatorium to which he has been sent for therapy.
Heretofore, Holden lives in Ossenburger Hall, and in Chapters III and IV, he sits in his room reading. He is interrupted by Ackley, a pimply student who lives next door. Ackley is an unwelcome classmate of his who constantly barges into Holden’s room. Ackley exhibits disgusting personal habits and poor hygiene. He feels he is doing Holden a favor by spending time with the latter. Ackley hinders Holden from his reading, pesters him with annoying questions and further aggravates Holden by annoying questions, and further aggravates Holden by cutting his fingernails on the floor. He also refuses to take Holden’s hints that he leave. However, when Holden’s handsome and popular roommate, Stradlater enters, Ackley who hates his guts, returns to his own room.
Stradlater reveals to Holden that he has a date waiting and that he needs to shave. Holden inwardly decides that whereas Ackley is ugly and is an obvious slob, Stradley is a “secret slob”. Stradley asks Holden to write an essay for him and informs him that the former is taking a girl whom Holden felt drawn to in the past – Jane Gallagher. Holden is saddened that Stradlater, a sexually experienced fellow is taking her on a date. Before he leaves, he borrows Holden’s hound’s-tooth jacket.
After Stradlater leaves, Holden is tormented by the thoughts of Jane and Stradlater together. Ackley barges in again, squeezing pimples until dinnertime. So far we see how Holden interacts with the “phonies” around him – people whose surface behavior disguises their inner self. Even his brother D.H. incurs his displeasure by receiving a large paycheck to write for the movies. Holden deems the cinema to be the phoniest of all, emphasizing from beginning to end his hatred for Hollywood.
Sadly, at Pencey Prep School, Holden is surrounded by phonies – primping Ackley and egocentric Stradlater to start with. Yet Holden reacts with kindness toward them. He allows Ackley to barge into his room and agrees to write a composition for Stradlater, despite his worry that Stradlater may make sexual advances toward Jane whom Holden cares for very deeply.
On the other hand, Holden makes it such that Ackley and Stradlater are unsympathetic characters. He knows that Ackley behaves in the way he does because he is insecure and unpopular. Yet he focuses on Ackley’s surface – his outward appearance – his skin, thus making him even more disgusting. Holden’s interactions reveal how lonely he is. It is easy for the reader to realize that both he and Ackley share the same predicament.
They are both isolated; and both maintain a bitter, critical exterior in order to protect themselves from the world that assaults them. Ackley’s isolation is caused by his disgusting habits, but these habits protect him from the dangers of interaction and intimacy. Ackley’s situation helps us to understand Holden’s inner landscape wherein intimacy and interaction are what he needs and fears most.
In Chapter V, Ackley, squeezing his pimples, as usual, boasts of his sexual prowess to Holden who finally gets him to leave by starting to work on Stradlater’s composition. The essay was supposed to be a simple description of a room or a house; but Holden, in a creative mood, wrote about a baseball glove that his brother Allie used to copy poems onto, in green ink. Allie was Holden’s brother who had passed away. Holden felt his loss very strongly. He says that Allie was an intelligent, sensitive, super-nice, and innocent child. He wrote that the night Allie died, he slept in the garage and broke all the windows with his bare hands.
In Chapter VI, Stradlater comes home from his date and voices his annoyance that Holden failed to follow his instructions. He further insults Holden by saying that no wonder Holden is being expelled. Holden asks him about his date with Jane but Stradlater refuses to divulge any information taunting him instead. Holden attacks him but is pinned to the floor. Stradlater punches him and bloodies his nose; he later becomes worried that he will get in trouble as a result of his action.
Throughout the novel, it becomes apparent that Allie’s death was a most traumatic event in Holden’s life and may have played a major part in his psychological collapse.
In Chapter VII, Holden wakes Ackley asking him whether he could run off and join a monastery without being Catholic. Ackley is annoyed and Holden is equally annoyed by Ackley’s “phoniness”. He decides to leave for New York. He packs his bags and as he heads into the hallway, he yells, “Sleep tight, ya moron!” to the boys on his floor before leaving Pencey forever.
Chapter VII narrates that on the train to New York, Holden meets the mother of his fellow Pencey student, Ernest. Though he thinks this student is a complete “bastard”, he invents stories to the woman about how shy her son is and how well-respected he is at school. He lies also that his name is Rudolph Smidt and is returning to New York for a brain operation.
Chapters VIII and IX reveal to the reader that Holden’s frantic loneliness and constant lying bares the implication that he is fast approaching an emotional breakdown which he never comments on directly. He feels guilty for lying but the only way he can stop is to stop talking altogether. What is clear is that he lies to deflect attention from himself and what he is doing.
As he tells his story, Holden does not seem concerned about his own behavior. He rarely discusses his feelings. By adding what we know about Holden plus his actions, we can piece together the desperation, pressure, and trauma he has endured during this difficult period in his life.
In Chapter X, Holden contemplates calling Phoebe, his little sister. His description of her is similar to that he has given of Allie. He is impressed by her unusual intelligence for her age. He remembers her humor, and cleverness, and the fact that she writes fiction. Her only fault is that she is too emotional. She and Allie are the only two people in his family who are entirely devoid of phoniness or hypocrisy.
In Chapter XI, Holden reminisces about Jane with whom he became close. Jane was the only one to whom Holden showed Allie’s baseball glove. They used to hold hands constantly. When you held Jane’s hand, “all you knew was, you were happy. You really were.” Jane is another character who was not a phony.
Chapter XII relates how Holden takes a cab to a nightclub called “Ernie’s”, a spot he used to frequent with his brother, D.B. Holden’s cab driver is named Horwitz whom Holden takes a liking to, but when Holden asks him about the ducks in Central Park lagoon, Horwitz unexpectedly becomes angry. He takes a table, drinks a Scotch and soda while listening to the conversations around him which he finds depressing and phony. He encounters a girl whom D.B. used to date and is forced to leave the nightclub to get away from her.
In chapters X to XII, it is clear that loneliness is at the heart of Holden’s problem. Arriving in New York late in the evening, he calls Faith Cavendish. Calling a girl you have never met at midnight is abnormal and here we see the depth of Holden’s feelings of loneliness and isolation.
Holden never mentions himself. He avoids introspection and reflection on his own mistakes by focusing on others. This reveals the extent to which he longs for companionship, love, and compassionate interaction to help him through a difficult time in his life. His inability or unwillingness to understand the world around him shows his deep alienation and isolation.
Upon reaching his hotel, Holden takes the elevator to his room. The elevator operator offers to send him a prostitute for five dollars and Holden accepts. When the prostitute, Sunny arrives, she sits on his lap and proceeds to seduce him. Holden becomes nervous and tells her he is unable to have sex with her since he is still recovering from an operation. He pays her five dollars but she insists the price is ten and when he refuses, she leaves in a huff.
Later, Maurice, the elevator man returns with Sunny. She takes the money from Holden’s wallet while Maurice slugs him. Finally, Holden drags himself to bed and falls asleep. Sunny represents another of Holden’s attempts at female companionship.
But whereas Holden’s relationship with Jane brought him emotional satisfaction, his relationship with a prostitute can only be superficial, sexual, and devoid of emotion.
Holden proceeds to construct a simplistic divide between childhood seen as innocent and good as adulthood seen as superficial and evil. He is, therefore, able to rationalize his loneliness by pretending that all adults around him are phony. His encounter with Maurice and Sunny reaffirms his understanding of a cruel and senseless adult world.
But the nuns are kind, intelligent, and sympathetic. They do not conform to organized religion nor do they seem to have the phoniness that Holden expects of anything institutionalized.
Holden calls a boy named Carl Luce whom he used to know at the Wharton School and Luce agrees to meet him for drinks later. Luce is three years older than Holden and is now a student at Columbia University. At the Wharton School, Luce used to tell the younger boys about sex. Holden finds Luce amusing although he is effeminate and a phony. When Luce arrives, he treats Holden coolly and Holden pesters him with questions about sex. Luce suggests that Holden consult a psychoanalyst. Annoyed by Holden’s juvenile comments and questions, Luce departs. Holden then goes home.
Holden feels depressed and disappointed in himself – that despite his protestations that Luce is a phony, he wanted to connect with him and failed. He gets dead drunk and acts completely unhinged. Though he does not acknowledge his imbalances, we see how little control he has over himself and his worsening situation.
Holden sneaks into his family’s apartment and looks for Phoebe. He finds her in D.B.’s room peacefully asleep. He finally wakes Phoebe who is overjoyed to see him. She talks animatedly with him until she realizes he is home too early and must have been kicked out of school. She refuses to listen further. When she does, Holden explains his side. He then leaves the room to call Mr. Antolini, a former teacher. Shocked that Holden has been kicked out of school, he nevertheless invites the boy to stay at his house overnight. Holden remembers Mr. Antolini as the only teacher who demonstrated courage and kindness in the past.
All throughout the novel, by “catching” children from falling off a cliff, Holden really wants to protect them from the fallout of innocence into the adult world. Holden leaves the Antolini house, believing that his teacher made homosexual advances on Holden. Holden referred to another teacher as “old Spencer”. It was Mr. Antolini alone who seemed to offer Holden his only chance of making a sympathetic connection with an adult but Holden blew it.
Phoebe has an altercation with Holden who refuses to bring her with him when he leaves New York. However, he convinces her to come with him to the carousel where Phoebe rides on it. He sits on a park bench and watches her go round and round. Having reconciled with her, he feels so happy he could cry.
The story ends on a somewhat happy note. Holden returns home, gets sick, and is sent to the rest home. He says he will enroll in a new school in the fall and will apply himself to his studies. Before this, his breakdown reaches its climax and he is completely shattered by it. But now he has begun to shed his cynicism. He has begun to value people and, after all, there is someone like Phoebe to see him through.