Chapter 1: In the first chapter of 'The Catcher in the Rye' we meet a character called Holden Caulfield, who we find to be a head strong and stubborn young man. He uses language higher than that of his age, using such terms as 'goddamn' and 'bastard'. He writes his story from a rest home in which Holden has been sent for therapy. Holden talks about his story starting from ‘around last Christmas’. Holden in this chapter also talks about his brother D.B who is a Hollywood writer, but refuses to talk about his early life. Holden admits in his writings that he is bitter because of D.B having gone to Hollywood to fulfil a career in serious literature for films, while gaining the wealth and fame from the movies. Holden also talks about his breakdown, which starts from the beginning with his departure from Pency Prep school.
His story begins on a Saturday in December at Pencey Prep School in Pennsyvania, United States. In this chapter we find out Holden has been kicked out of the school, because he has failed almost all of his classes except English. We also find out that Holden being kicked out of school is not unusual in Holden’s past.
In this chapter we see Holden standing on Thomsen Hill which overlooks the football field, of which a big game is being played. Pency school against Saxon Hall. Holden states he has no interest in the game whatsoever and had not planned to watch it at all. We also find out that Holden is the manager of the school’s fencing team, and is supposed to be in the city of New York for a meeting but he had lost the team’s equipment on the subway which forced the whole team to retire from the meeting.
The character is full of contempt for the school he is currently in, but he tries to find a way to “say goodbye” to it. He remembers fondly throwing a football with friends around the campus’s grounds even though it was getting dark. Holden then sprints away from the game to say goodbye to his old History teacher Mr Spencer, who currently is very ill with the flu and is suffering as a result because he is a very old man. As Holden sprints he needs to stop to catch his breath as he is a heavy smoker. When he gets to the teachers house Spencer’s wife greets Holden warmly, and he goes to speak to his teacher.
Chapter 2: When Holden arrives at the house he is greeted by Mr Spencer’s wife who greets him in a friendly and polite manner, which suggests they are on good terms as friends. Walking into the main room Holden sees his teacher and describes the room as smelling like vicks nose drops. He is put off by the sight of his old ill teacher, but out of respect continues to enter the room and sit on his ‘rock hard bed’. The two of them talk about Holden being kicked out of school and then how he didn’t apply himself when it came to his studies. Mr Spencer then proceeds to lecture Holden about his lack of commitment and reads out to him a old exam paper on the Ancient Eqyptians. Holden becomes annoyed by this but listens to his teacher anyway not wanting to start another lecture. Mr Spencer confirms Pencey’s headmasters assertion that “life is a game”, and he tells Holden that to live his life efficiently he must learn to play by the rules. Even though Mr Spencer feels affection for his student, he blunty reminds him he flunked him in his studies and reads out the old exam paper. He also tries to make Holden think about his future, but not wanting to be lectured Holden claims he must go back to the gym to pick up his equipment as he is packing to go home.
Chapter 3: The character Holden resides in hall of residence in the school, which is named Ossenburger Hall. This hall was named after a wealthy Pencey graduate who made a fortune in the discount funeral home business. While in his room Holden sits and reads a book called ‘Out of Africa’ by Isak Dinesen. He wears his new hunting hat, a flamboyant red cap with a long peaked brim, with ear flaps attatched. In this chapter we meet a character called Ackley, a student who Holden describes as ‘pimply, unhygienic kid with mossy teeth and bad eating habits’. Holden also describes Ackley as a irritating classmate who constantly barges into his room, exhibits disgusting personal habits and acts like he is doing others a favour by spending time with them. The character Ackley does not seem to have many friends. While the character Ackley is in Holden’s room he prevents Holden from reading his book by puttering around the room and pestering him with annoying irrelevant questions.
Ackley continues to aggravate and push Holden’s temper by cutting his fingernails on the floor, despite Holden’s repeated requests to stop. Eventually Holden snaps and tells Ackley if he is to cut his nails he must do it over the table. Ackley also refuses to take Holden’s hints that he ought to leave Holden’s room, instead staying there. When Holden’s handsome and popular roommate Stradlater arrives however Ackley leaves, as he hates Stradlater’s guts. Stradlater mentions that he has a date waiting for him somewhere, but he first wants a shave to make himself look presentable.
Chapter 4:
In chapter 4 Holden goes to his bathroom with Stradlater and they have a conversation while Stradlater shaves with his blunt cut throat razor. Holden contrasts Stradlater’s personal habits to Ackley’s: he notices while Ackley is ugly and has very poor dental hygiene, Stradlater is extremely attractive but he does not keep his shaving razor or other toiletries clean. Holden decides that while Ackley is a clearly obvious slob, Stradlater is a “secret slob”. The two young men joke around, and then Stradlater has an idea and asks Holden if he could write his English composition for him because his date will not leave him with the time to do it on his own. Holden quickly changes the subject and asks about the date Stradlater is going on, and to his horror learns the girl that is being taken out is a girl he knows called Jane Gallagher. Stradlater calls Jane Jean, and it is clear Holden still has strong feelings for Jane and remembers her very vividly. He tells Stradlater that when the two of them used to play checkers, she used to keep all her kings in the back row because she had a liking of the way they looked there. Stradlater however is uninterested with Holden’s story. Holden is displeased with that Stradlater, who is one of the few boys who are sexually experienced at Pency is taking his crush on a date. Holden wants to say hello to Jane while she waits for Stradlater to arrive for their date, but changes his mind when he decides he is not in the mood. Before Stradlater heads for his his date he borrows Holden’s hound’s tooth jacket.
After Stradlater has left Holden’s room, Holden is tormented with thoughts of Stradlater and Jan being together, and he worries excessively over what the two of them may get up to on the date. His thoughts however are interrupted when Ackley barges into the room again and sits down, and much to Holden’s displeasure he starts to squeeze his pimples until dinner.
Chapter 5:
After dinner which consisted of a dry and unappetizing steak dinner in Pencey’s dining hall, Holden gets into a snowball fight with a number of the other Pencey boys. Holden and his friend Mal Brossard decide to take a bus together into Agerstown to watch a movie, despite Holden despising movies. Holden convinces Mal to let Ackley go with them, and it turns out Akley and Brossard have already seen the film in question so instead the three of them g to eat burgers, play some pinall and then head back to the school.
After the excursion takes place Mal goes off to find a bridge game, and Ackley decides to sit on Holden’s bed squeezing his pimples are written in the previous chapter. Ackley begins to concoct stories about a girl he used to know, and how he ‘had sex’ with her during the previous summer. Holden finally has enough of Ackley and gets him to leave his room by starting work on the assignment for Stradlater. Stradlater had told Holden that the composition was meant to be written as a simple description of a room, house or some kind of person or object. Holden however despite this cannot think of anything to write about if he was to write about a house or room, so instead he starts to write about his baseball glove that is brother Allie gave to him. He wrote about how Allie used to write poems onto it with green ink, but did not write that it was HIS glove, but instead wrote that it was Stradlater’s.
In this chapter we learn that Holden’s brother Allie, had died of the cancer leukaemia several years before. Although Allie was two years younger than Holden, Holden tells us that Allie was the most intelligent member of their family. Holden also tells the readers that Allie was a very ice and innocent child and Holden clearly grieves over his brother’s passing very strongly. He gives a brief description of Allie, talking about his bright red hair. He also remembers and writes about the night he found out that Allie had died, he was so heart-broken he slept in the garage that night, and broke all the windows with his bare hands (which caused permanent damage to his fists which we find out about early on in the book). After completing the assignment for Stradlater, Holden stares out the window and thinks. All he can hear is Ackley snoring in his sleep in the next room.
His story begins on a Saturday in December at Pencey Prep School in Pennsyvania, United States. In this chapter we find out Holden has been kicked out of the school, because he has failed almost all of his classes except English. We also find out that Holden being kicked out of school is not unusual in Holden’s past.
In this chapter we see Holden standing on Thomsen Hill which overlooks the football field, of which a big game is being played. Pency school against Saxon Hall. Holden states he has no interest in the game whatsoever and had not planned to watch it at all. We also find out that Holden is the manager of the school’s fencing team, and is supposed to be in the city of New York for a meeting but he had lost the team’s equipment on the subway which forced the whole team to retire from the meeting.
The character is full of contempt for the school he is currently in, but he tries to find a way to “say goodbye” to it. He remembers fondly throwing a football with friends around the campus’s grounds even though it was getting dark. Holden then sprints away from the game to say goodbye to his old History teacher Mr Spencer, who currently is very ill with the flu and is suffering as a result because he is a very old man. As Holden sprints he needs to stop to catch his breath as he is a heavy smoker. When he gets to the teachers house Spencer’s wife greets Holden warmly, and he goes to speak to his teacher.
Chapter 2: When Holden arrives at the house he is greeted by Mr Spencer’s wife who greets him in a friendly and polite manner, which suggests they are on good terms as friends. Walking into the main room Holden sees his teacher and describes the room as smelling like vicks nose drops. He is put off by the sight of his old ill teacher, but out of respect continues to enter the room and sit on his ‘rock hard bed’. The two of them talk about Holden being kicked out of school and then how he didn’t apply himself when it came to his studies. Mr Spencer then proceeds to lecture Holden about his lack of commitment and reads out to him a old exam paper on the Ancient Eqyptians. Holden becomes annoyed by this but listens to his teacher anyway not wanting to start another lecture. Mr Spencer confirms Pencey’s headmasters assertion that “life is a game”, and he tells Holden that to live his life efficiently he must learn to play by the rules. Even though Mr Spencer feels affection for his student, he blunty reminds him he flunked him in his studies and reads out the old exam paper. He also tries to make Holden think about his future, but not wanting to be lectured Holden claims he must go back to the gym to pick up his equipment as he is packing to go home.
Chapter 3: The character Holden resides in hall of residence in the school, which is named Ossenburger Hall. This hall was named after a wealthy Pencey graduate who made a fortune in the discount funeral home business. While in his room Holden sits and reads a book called ‘Out of Africa’ by Isak Dinesen. He wears his new hunting hat, a flamboyant red cap with a long peaked brim, with ear flaps attatched. In this chapter we meet a character called Ackley, a student who Holden describes as ‘pimply, unhygienic kid with mossy teeth and bad eating habits’. Holden also describes Ackley as a irritating classmate who constantly barges into his room, exhibits disgusting personal habits and acts like he is doing others a favour by spending time with them. The character Ackley does not seem to have many friends. While the character Ackley is in Holden’s room he prevents Holden from reading his book by puttering around the room and pestering him with annoying irrelevant questions.
Ackley continues to aggravate and push Holden’s temper by cutting his fingernails on the floor, despite Holden’s repeated requests to stop. Eventually Holden snaps and tells Ackley if he is to cut his nails he must do it over the table. Ackley also refuses to take Holden’s hints that he ought to leave Holden’s room, instead staying there. When Holden’s handsome and popular roommate Stradlater arrives however Ackley leaves, as he hates Stradlater’s guts. Stradlater mentions that he has a date waiting for him somewhere, but he first wants a shave to make himself look presentable.
Chapter 4:
In chapter 4 Holden goes to his bathroom with Stradlater and they have a conversation while Stradlater shaves with his blunt cut throat razor. Holden contrasts Stradlater’s personal habits to Ackley’s: he notices while Ackley is ugly and has very poor dental hygiene, Stradlater is extremely attractive but he does not keep his shaving razor or other toiletries clean. Holden decides that while Ackley is a clearly obvious slob, Stradlater is a “secret slob”. The two young men joke around, and then Stradlater has an idea and asks Holden if he could write his English composition for him because his date will not leave him with the time to do it on his own. Holden quickly changes the subject and asks about the date Stradlater is going on, and to his horror learns the girl that is being taken out is a girl he knows called Jane Gallagher. Stradlater calls Jane Jean, and it is clear Holden still has strong feelings for Jane and remembers her very vividly. He tells Stradlater that when the two of them used to play checkers, she used to keep all her kings in the back row because she had a liking of the way they looked there. Stradlater however is uninterested with Holden’s story. Holden is displeased with that Stradlater, who is one of the few boys who are sexually experienced at Pency is taking his crush on a date. Holden wants to say hello to Jane while she waits for Stradlater to arrive for their date, but changes his mind when he decides he is not in the mood. Before Stradlater heads for his his date he borrows Holden’s hound’s tooth jacket.
After Stradlater has left Holden’s room, Holden is tormented with thoughts of Stradlater and Jan being together, and he worries excessively over what the two of them may get up to on the date. His thoughts however are interrupted when Ackley barges into the room again and sits down, and much to Holden’s displeasure he starts to squeeze his pimples until dinner.
Chapter 5:
After dinner which consisted of a dry and unappetizing steak dinner in Pencey’s dining hall, Holden gets into a snowball fight with a number of the other Pencey boys. Holden and his friend Mal Brossard decide to take a bus together into Agerstown to watch a movie, despite Holden despising movies. Holden convinces Mal to let Ackley go with them, and it turns out Akley and Brossard have already seen the film in question so instead the three of them g to eat burgers, play some pinall and then head back to the school.
After the excursion takes place Mal goes off to find a bridge game, and Ackley decides to sit on Holden’s bed squeezing his pimples are written in the previous chapter. Ackley begins to concoct stories about a girl he used to know, and how he ‘had sex’ with her during the previous summer. Holden finally has enough of Ackley and gets him to leave his room by starting work on the assignment for Stradlater. Stradlater had told Holden that the composition was meant to be written as a simple description of a room, house or some kind of person or object. Holden however despite this cannot think of anything to write about if he was to write about a house or room, so instead he starts to write about his baseball glove that is brother Allie gave to him. He wrote about how Allie used to write poems onto it with green ink, but did not write that it was HIS glove, but instead wrote that it was Stradlater’s.
In this chapter we learn that Holden’s brother Allie, had died of the cancer leukaemia several years before. Although Allie was two years younger than Holden, Holden tells us that Allie was the most intelligent member of their family. Holden also tells the readers that Allie was a very ice and innocent child and Holden clearly grieves over his brother’s passing very strongly. He gives a brief description of Allie, talking about his bright red hair. He also remembers and writes about the night he found out that Allie had died, he was so heart-broken he slept in the garage that night, and broke all the windows with his bare hands (which caused permanent damage to his fists which we find out about early on in the book). After completing the assignment for Stradlater, Holden stares out the window and thinks. All he can hear is Ackley snoring in his sleep in the next room.
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Chapter 6:
Stradlater soon arrives back to Pencey from his date with Jane, and barges into Holden’s room with out permission to enter. He asks to read the assignment Holden wrote for him, and when he is given it begins to read it. As he is reading the assignment he comes visibly annoyed and agitated, asserting to Holden that the subject written about has absolutely nothing to do with what was asked by Stradlater’s teacher. Stradlater says that it is not a surprise that Holden is being expelled from the school, and in anger Holden snatches the assignment and tears it up throwing it away in anger. After this he lights and smokes a cigarette in the room, with the simple aim to annoy Stradlater so he will leave the room. However the tension builds up between the two students when Holden asks Stradlater about his date with Jane, and how it went. Stradlater refuses to tell Holden any details, and this angers Holden, who in turn attacks Stradlater. Stradlater being stronger than Holden pins him down, and attempts to get him to calm down, but Holden refuses to calm down and relentlessly and furosicously insults Stradlater which drives him crazy causing him to punch Holden in the face, causing his nose to bleed. Stradlater then worries that he has hurt Holden and will get into trouble for his actions, but Holden insults him even more. Stradlater sees that there is no point in arguing and leaves the room. Holden after lying on the floor for sometime picks himself up from the ground, and walks to Ackley’s room his face covered in blood.
Chapter 7:
After entering Ackley’s room Holden and Ackley talk for a while, and then Holden attempts to fall asleep in a bed belonging to Ackley’s room mate who is away from the school for the weekend. However his sleep is disrupted when he cannot stop thinking about the possibility that Jane and Stradlater fooled around together, and so is unable to fall asleep. He then wakes Ackley from his sleep and talks to him, asking his opinion on whether or not he could run off to a monastery and join it without being a Catholic. Ackley becomes annoyed by the conversation, as he feels Holden is insulting his face, and Holden is soon in turn annoyed by Ackley’s “phoniess” and so he leaves the room. Standing outside the room in the dorm’s halloway, Holden decides to leave for New York that very night instead of waiting a number of days till Wednesday. After a few days have past of being in New York in secret, he will wait until his parents have gotten over and digested the news of his expulsion before he returns home to them. Holden packs all his belongings into his bag, puts on his brother’s hunting hat and starts to cry. After calming down he heads into the hallway of the dorm, and just before running out the building shouts out loud, “Sleep tight, ya morons!” to all the boys in his dorm and runs out of the building stepping out of Pencey school forever.
Chapter 8:
Deciding to walk Holden makes his way to the train station, and catches a late train headed to New York. When the train arrives at Trenton an attractive, yet older woman boards the train and takes the seat next to Holden. After starting a conversation with the woman Holden finds out that she is the mother of Holden’s former classmate, Ernest Morrow. Holden despites Ernest immensely but hides this and tells the mother stories about him, which are lies. Holden claims Ernest is the most popular boy on campus, and would have been elected for class president, had he let the other boys nominate him for the role. Holden when asked what his name is by the woman tells her his name is Rudolph Schmidt, which in reality is actually Pencey’s janitor’s name. The mother quizzes Holden on why he has left the school early, and hurriedly thinking of a lie, tells her he is returning to New York to receive an life-saving operation for a brain tumour. The mother believes Holden, and offers to buy her a drink but she remembers he is only a minor, and it would not look good if her son's classmate buys her a drink. She kindly turns down the offer, and soon they part ways when their stops arrive at the train station.
Chapter 9:
When Holden departs from the train at Penn Station, he decides he wants to call someone so enters a phone booth. But when he grabs the phone receiver, but he cannot think of a person to call. His brother, D.B is in Hollywood working as a writer, his sister Phoebe who is younger would be asleep with it being so late at night and he does not feel like calling Jane, his friend Sally Hayes or his mother who hates him. Giving up trying to think of someone he leaves the phone booth, and catches a cab to the Edmont Hotel. While the cab is moving Holden tries to make conversation with the driver, by asking him where the ducks that swim in the Central Park lagoon go when the winter arrives. The driver however is uninterested with the conversation and snaps at Holden for being so curious and for asking stupid questions. Holden arrives into his room , and he looks across the hotel’s courtyard from his window into the lighted windows on the other side of the building, and observes strange acts taking place. One man who appears to be a normal, middle aged man starts to dress in a woman’s dress and putting on a wig and accessories, and in another room a man and woman taking turns to spit drinks into each other’s face. He begins to feel sexually excited. Holden then rings a girl named Faith Cavendish, a promiscuous girl a friend he met a party told him about and she answers the phone only to tell him she had been asleep. He tries to arrange a date with Faith, but she refuses claiming she needs her ‘beauty sleep’, but she offers to see him the next day. Holden declines the offer as he does not wish to wait that long to see her, and so hangs up the phone call without arranging any plans to meet with her.
Chapter 10:
Holden feels restless, so tries to go to sleep. About an hour later however Holden still feels restless, so he changes his shirt and with caution goes down to the Lavender Room, the hotel’s nightclub. But before he leaves the night club Holden thinks once again about calling his little sister, Phoebe. He refers to her as “Old Phoebe”, and his description he gives us as readers is very similar to his description of his brother Allie that he gave us in chapter five. Like her brother (Allie) Phoebe has red hair, and is very yet unusually intelligent for her age. Holden recalls the time he and Phoebe went to the movies to see Hitchcock’s ‘The Steps’ even though Holden loathes the movies and the cinemas. He notes in his memory of Phoebe that she was very funny, had a sense of humour and was clever and that she writes never-ending fictional stories about a character she made up called “Hazle”. The only drawback Holden has about his sister is that she is too emotional.
When Holden gets to the Lavender room, he takes a table and attempts to order an alcoholic cocktail. When the waiter questions him on his age, Holden explains that due to his height and grey hair he is able often to buy alcohol, but the waiter refuses to serve him without proof that Holden is eighteen or over. Holden in the end orders a soda, and spots three woman sitting on a table opposite him. He flirts with them and asks which one of them would like to dance with him. They seem amused but uninterested in him, but let him buy drinks for them. One of the woman dances with him but they soon tire of him as they have tolerated him for long enough. They laugh at him, and they also depress him with their love of movie stars. Holden tries to impress one of the girls by telling her he had just seen Gary Cooper, a celebrity in the club. The girl tells the other two girls that she also caught a glimpse of Cooper and they start talking about it. Holden however gets bored and agitated and so leaves the Lavender Club.
Chapter 11:
As Holden leaves the club and walks out into the lobby, he starts to remember the girl that he loves: Jane Callaghan. Their families’ summer homes located in Maine, which were next to each other, and hoe he met her after his own mother confronted her mother about a Doberman Pinscher dog that would frequently relieve itself on the Caulfield’s (Holden’s family) lawn. Holden remembers how he and Jane become close, and how Jane was the only person that he would show Allie’s baseball glove to. One day while the two of them were sitting on her porch Jane’s alcoholic step-father approached them, while she and Holden were playing checkers. The drunkard asked Jane to give him some cigarettes, but Jane was scared and refused to answer him. Soon the drunkard got bored of trying to get her to answer and went inside the house, and Jane began to cry. In an attempt to comfort her Holden held her close, kissing all over her face and telling her it was ‘going to be ok’. Apart from this incident in which Jane let Holden kiss her, their physical relationship was mild, but despite this they would hold hands constantly. Holden tells us that when you hold Jane’s hand, “all you knew was, you were happy. You really were”. Holden’s emotions start to deteriorate and he becomes upset, soon returning to his room after being sat on a vomit looking colored chair. When he gets to his room he sees that the lights in the ‘perverts’ rooms are not lit anymore. Unable to sleep due to being wide awake, Holden grabs his bag, heads downstairs hoping to not bump into the worker who assaulted him and calls for a taxi.
Chapter 12:
When Holden is able to get a cab, he travels to a Greenwich Village’s nightclub named ‘Ernie’s’, a club he used to visit frequently with his older brother D.B. Holden finds out his cab driver’s name is Horwitz, and he takes a liking to him. Holden asks Horwitz the same question he asked the other cab driver, where the ducks go in the winter from the Central Park Lagoon. Horwitz becomes angry unexpectedly and shouts at Holden. He however does tell Holden that the fish freeze in the water, but survive because they absorb food and nutrients from the water into their skin. After that the rest of the journey is silent and Holden soon arrives at Ernie’s club. Inside the club Holden listens to the owner Ernie play the piano professionally, but Holden is unimpressed and says Ernie plays the piano the way he does to impress customers in hope new ones will come. Holden is seated at a table and is able to order a Scotch and Soda. He listens to the conversations of people around him, which to him are depressing and phony. Suddenly a woman approaches him at his table screaming his name, and he finds out that the obnoxious and intoxicated girl is Lillian Simmons, an ex-girlfriend of his older brother. She is with another man who she makes say hello to Holden, and she has a conversation with Holden. Holden soon tires of her and becomes uncomfortable and is forced to leave the club to get away from her.
Chapter 13:
Holden feeling like a coward for leaving the club, walks forty-one blocks all the way back to the hotel. His mood is very low and he feels extremely depressed. On the way to the hotel he thinks about his gloves, which were stolen by someone in Pencey. He remembers how he confronted a boy about them, and found them in his closet. But the boy claimed he did not know how they got there, and Holden left it at that. He realises he is a coward at heart, who is afraid of violence and confrontation, which is why he did not start a fight over the gloves. When Holden reaches his hotel, he takes the elevator to his room and meets the elevator’s operator. The operator offers to send him a prostitute to Holden’s room, after Holden once again lies about his age. Holden is told the fee is $5 and Holden, who is depressed and flustered and so cannot think maturely accepts the offer. When he gets back to his room he thinks about his cowardice, because he believes that due to his cowardice, he has never had the courage to sleep with a woman.
In Holden’s eyes women want men who assert power and control. While he thinks he changes his shirt realising the prostitute will be on her way. Soon she arrives, and introduces herself as Sunny. She in a annoyed tone tells Holden she had been woken up for this meeting, and so Holden had better make use of it. She is a cynical young woman who appears to be sixteen, with a high voice. Holden asks her why she is selling herself and she says it helps her get a living. Holden becomes flustered when she removes her dress, and is forced to sit down before he falls down. Sunny then sits on his lap, trying to seduce him to get him in the mood for sexual intercourse. Holden stutters and tells her he is unable to have sex with her, because he is recovering from a operation to repair his “clavichord”. He lies because he is extremely nervous. Sunny becomes annoyed and demands to know why she was sent to him, if he wasn’t going to have sex with him and Holden says to her he just wanted the company. He pays her the $5 she is owed however, and asks her to leave as he is tired. However Sunny claims her fee is $10 and Holden refuses to pay an extra $5 as he was told it was $5 for the hour. She leaves in a tantrum.
Chapter 14:
After Sunny leaves the hotel room Holden lights his first cigarette of the night and smokes for a while. As he smokes he remembers an incident which happened shortly before Allie’s death, and the event was when Holden had excluded Allie from a BB-gun game, but in the end let him join in. Even after all these years Holden says he still to this day feels guilty that he almost left Allie out of the game, and eventually he retires to his bed for the night. Holden had felt like praying but his personal distaste for organised religion prevents him from doing this, and so he just goes to sleep.
Suddenly someone knocks at the door waking Holden up, and he gets out of bed to investigate. Dressed in his nightwear he opens the door, to discover that it is the elevator operator at the door, with Sunny by his side. He states to Holden he is here to claim the extra $5 he owes Sunny, but Holden tries to refuse to pay him stating he was told it was $5 for the hour, as she had not stayed the whole night. In anger Maurice pushes Holden and pins him against the wall, while Sunny looks around for Holden’s wallet. Soon she finds it and takes the money she is ‘owed’ and begs the operator to leave Holden alone. However this does not happen as Holden tries to be brave and fights back verbally to the man. The operator gets angry and snaps his fingers on Holden’s groin, which causes him severe pain. Appearing to be unaffected Holden continues to verbally insult him, so the operator finishes him off with a good fist punch to the stomach, which winds Holden and causes him to fall onto the floor in agony. When the man and Sunny leaves Holden stays on the floor for some time, and while he lies on the floor he imagines he is a movie character, taking his revenge on the man by shooting him in the gut with a pistol. After about an hour Holden manages to rise from the floor and go back to his bed to sleep.
Chapter 15:
When morning arrives Holden calls an old friend, Sally Hayes and arranges a date with her. He plans to meet with her later that afternoon. Grabbing his bags he cautiously leaves the room, making sure he does not bump into his attacker from the night before. When he arrives on the ground floor of the hotel he checks out and heads to the Grand Central Station. Realising he can’t carry his belongings with him when he meets with Sally he places his bag in a locker at the station, but worries about losing his money and mentions to the reader that his father would frequently get angry at him when he lost his things. Holden also describes his mother a small amount, telling us that she “hasn’t felt too healthy since my brother Allie died”. Holden then worries that the news of his expulsion from Pencey will distress his fragile mother even more, and this shows he cares about her a great deal.
Deciding to go for breakfast he heads to a small sandwich bar, and orders a simple breakfast of toast and eggs. Here he meets two nuns who are moving to the city of Manhattan to teach in a school. He talks with the two nuns and offers them a $10 charity donation, but they refuse it politely. Holden forces them to take it however, and then finds out one of the nuns will teach English, and the other History. He talks with the English teacher nun about the book Romeo and Juliet. After they leave he realises he needs money for his date with Sally, and soon regrets giving the two nuns only $10. Due to this he comes to the conclusion that money always makes people distressed. Period.
Chapter 16:
After Holden finishes breakfast he decides to go for a walk, and while he walks he thinks about the selflessness of the nuns he met and cannot imagine anybody he knows who would be so generous and giving to others. Heading down to Broadway he aims to buy a record called “Little Shirley Beans” for his sister Phoebe. Holden likes the record because even though it is for children, it is sung by a black blues singer whose vocal style makes it sound raunchy, and not cute. Thinking about his sister he considers her to be a wonderful girl, because even though she is only ten years old she always understands what Holden means when he has a conversation with her. As he is walking he sees an oblivious young boy who is a child walking down the street, singing “If a body catch a body coming through the rye”. The innocence of the child and the scene cheers Holden up, and he decides to call Jane. But he hangs up when her mother answers the phone instead of Jane herself. In preparation for his date with Sally he purchases theatre tickets, tickets to a show called “I Know My Love” starring the Lunts.
Holden soon wants to see his little sister Phoebe, and so he goes to look for her in the local park as he remembers she often roller-skates there on the seventh day of the week. At the park he does not meet his sister, but he meets a girl know knows her. At first the girl tells him that Phoebe is on a school trip to the Natural History Museum, but then as soon as Holden is about to head there she remembers that the trip was the previous day. Saying thank you and taking his leave of the girl Holden heads to the Museum, and as he walks to it he remembers his own school trips. As he walks he focuses on the way life is frozen in the Museum’s glass encases exhibits: the models of the ancient Eskimos and the American Indians, standing in a frozen lifeless expression. He remarks to the reader that every time he went to the Museum he felt that he had changed as a person, while the Museum stayed the exact same.
Chapter 17:
When two o’ clock strikes on the clock Holden heads out to meet Sally at the Biltmore Hotel, but she is late arriving. When she does arrive Holden notices how attractive she looks and so instantly forgives her lateness. Getting a taxi the two sit in the back and make out with each other, while the driver heads to the theatre under Holden’s command. When they arrive at the theatre they decide to see a show which both of them will like, however Holden becomes annoyed by the actors in the play simply because like Ernie the piano player at the club they are almost TOO good at what they professionally do, and seem to be full of themselves.
During the intermission of the show, Holden becomes irritated when Sally who is his date starts flirting with a boy from Andover, another prep school near Pencey but Holden shakes off the fact Sally is flirting with this boy. Holden agrees to take Sally ice-skating at “Radio City” ice-skating rink in a bid to impress her due to the fact she felt the need to flirt with another male. Holden while he is skating with Sally begins to speculate that Sally only wanted to go to an ice-skating rink to skate was so she could wear a short skirt in a bid to show off her “cute ass”, but despite this Holden admits in the chapter he finds her bottom attractive.
While the two of them sit down indoors to take a break, Holden begins to unravel. He oscillates between shouting and speaking in hushed tones, and he rants about the “phonies” in his old prep school and in the New York society. He tells Sally about how alienated he feels, and after a while he becomes more crazy in the mind and impetuous saying to Sally that the two of them should run away together, and escape society living on their own in a cabin.
After hearing Holden’s idea Sally points out to Holden that his dreams for them both are ‘ridiculous’, and as a result he becomes more and more agitated with her. The two of them soon fall into a quarrel which builds up until Holden calls Sally a “royal pain in the ass”, which upsets Sally greatly and she begins to cry. Holden feeling terrible and realising what he has just said starts to frantically apologize to her, but she is so upset and angry with him she refuses to listen. He soon leaves without her.
Chapter 18:
After leaving Sally at the ice-skating rink Holden heads into a drugstore, and consumes a Swiss cheese sandwich and a malted milk. While eating his lunch Holden thinks about calling Jane, but his mind soon begins to wander from that thought. He starts to remember the time he saw Jane at a dance, with a boy Holden thought off as a show-off, but Jane when she found out this opinion argued in the boy’s defence that the boy had an inferiority complex. Holden soon decides that girls always come up with that excuse so that they can date arrogant boys, but he soon calls Jane anyway. She does not answer his call.
He then calls a boy he knows named Carl Luce, who he used to know at the Whooton School, and to his delight Luce agrees to meet Holden for drinks later that night.
In a bid to kill time Holden goes to see a movie at Radio City, despite hating movies but he knows it will be a good way to kill some time until he is able to see his friend. Holden watches the Rockettes’ Christmas stage show and he finds it ridiculous and superficial, but he remembers how he and Allie used to love the kettledrum player in the Radio City pit orchestra due to watching the show.
The kettledrum player was an unnoticed and minuscule part of the show, but despite this he always seemed to take great pride and joy in doing what he did. After the show the movie Holden has paid to see begins, and he claims it was just as boring as the show before it. When the show is finished Holden begins to walk to the Wicker Bar where he is supposed to meet his friend Luce. We find out that the movie Holden has just watched in this chapter was about the war, so Holden begins to think about the army as a result of watching this film. Thinking about what D.B has told him, Holden concludes that he could never join the military and that he would rather (as he says in his own words) be shot by a firing squad or sit on top of an atom bomb which is ready to explode.
Chapter 19:
While Holden relaxes in the Wicker Bar which is located in the posh Seton Hotel, he thinks about his friend Luce.
Stradlater soon arrives back to Pencey from his date with Jane, and barges into Holden’s room with out permission to enter. He asks to read the assignment Holden wrote for him, and when he is given it begins to read it. As he is reading the assignment he comes visibly annoyed and agitated, asserting to Holden that the subject written about has absolutely nothing to do with what was asked by Stradlater’s teacher. Stradlater says that it is not a surprise that Holden is being expelled from the school, and in anger Holden snatches the assignment and tears it up throwing it away in anger. After this he lights and smokes a cigarette in the room, with the simple aim to annoy Stradlater so he will leave the room. However the tension builds up between the two students when Holden asks Stradlater about his date with Jane, and how it went. Stradlater refuses to tell Holden any details, and this angers Holden, who in turn attacks Stradlater. Stradlater being stronger than Holden pins him down, and attempts to get him to calm down, but Holden refuses to calm down and relentlessly and furosicously insults Stradlater which drives him crazy causing him to punch Holden in the face, causing his nose to bleed. Stradlater then worries that he has hurt Holden and will get into trouble for his actions, but Holden insults him even more. Stradlater sees that there is no point in arguing and leaves the room. Holden after lying on the floor for sometime picks himself up from the ground, and walks to Ackley’s room his face covered in blood.
Chapter 7:
After entering Ackley’s room Holden and Ackley talk for a while, and then Holden attempts to fall asleep in a bed belonging to Ackley’s room mate who is away from the school for the weekend. However his sleep is disrupted when he cannot stop thinking about the possibility that Jane and Stradlater fooled around together, and so is unable to fall asleep. He then wakes Ackley from his sleep and talks to him, asking his opinion on whether or not he could run off to a monastery and join it without being a Catholic. Ackley becomes annoyed by the conversation, as he feels Holden is insulting his face, and Holden is soon in turn annoyed by Ackley’s “phoniess” and so he leaves the room. Standing outside the room in the dorm’s halloway, Holden decides to leave for New York that very night instead of waiting a number of days till Wednesday. After a few days have past of being in New York in secret, he will wait until his parents have gotten over and digested the news of his expulsion before he returns home to them. Holden packs all his belongings into his bag, puts on his brother’s hunting hat and starts to cry. After calming down he heads into the hallway of the dorm, and just before running out the building shouts out loud, “Sleep tight, ya morons!” to all the boys in his dorm and runs out of the building stepping out of Pencey school forever.
Chapter 8:
Deciding to walk Holden makes his way to the train station, and catches a late train headed to New York. When the train arrives at Trenton an attractive, yet older woman boards the train and takes the seat next to Holden. After starting a conversation with the woman Holden finds out that she is the mother of Holden’s former classmate, Ernest Morrow. Holden despites Ernest immensely but hides this and tells the mother stories about him, which are lies. Holden claims Ernest is the most popular boy on campus, and would have been elected for class president, had he let the other boys nominate him for the role. Holden when asked what his name is by the woman tells her his name is Rudolph Schmidt, which in reality is actually Pencey’s janitor’s name. The mother quizzes Holden on why he has left the school early, and hurriedly thinking of a lie, tells her he is returning to New York to receive an life-saving operation for a brain tumour. The mother believes Holden, and offers to buy her a drink but she remembers he is only a minor, and it would not look good if her son's classmate buys her a drink. She kindly turns down the offer, and soon they part ways when their stops arrive at the train station.
Chapter 9:
When Holden departs from the train at Penn Station, he decides he wants to call someone so enters a phone booth. But when he grabs the phone receiver, but he cannot think of a person to call. His brother, D.B is in Hollywood working as a writer, his sister Phoebe who is younger would be asleep with it being so late at night and he does not feel like calling Jane, his friend Sally Hayes or his mother who hates him. Giving up trying to think of someone he leaves the phone booth, and catches a cab to the Edmont Hotel. While the cab is moving Holden tries to make conversation with the driver, by asking him where the ducks that swim in the Central Park lagoon go when the winter arrives. The driver however is uninterested with the conversation and snaps at Holden for being so curious and for asking stupid questions. Holden arrives into his room , and he looks across the hotel’s courtyard from his window into the lighted windows on the other side of the building, and observes strange acts taking place. One man who appears to be a normal, middle aged man starts to dress in a woman’s dress and putting on a wig and accessories, and in another room a man and woman taking turns to spit drinks into each other’s face. He begins to feel sexually excited. Holden then rings a girl named Faith Cavendish, a promiscuous girl a friend he met a party told him about and she answers the phone only to tell him she had been asleep. He tries to arrange a date with Faith, but she refuses claiming she needs her ‘beauty sleep’, but she offers to see him the next day. Holden declines the offer as he does not wish to wait that long to see her, and so hangs up the phone call without arranging any plans to meet with her.
Chapter 10:
Holden feels restless, so tries to go to sleep. About an hour later however Holden still feels restless, so he changes his shirt and with caution goes down to the Lavender Room, the hotel’s nightclub. But before he leaves the night club Holden thinks once again about calling his little sister, Phoebe. He refers to her as “Old Phoebe”, and his description he gives us as readers is very similar to his description of his brother Allie that he gave us in chapter five. Like her brother (Allie) Phoebe has red hair, and is very yet unusually intelligent for her age. Holden recalls the time he and Phoebe went to the movies to see Hitchcock’s ‘The Steps’ even though Holden loathes the movies and the cinemas. He notes in his memory of Phoebe that she was very funny, had a sense of humour and was clever and that she writes never-ending fictional stories about a character she made up called “Hazle”. The only drawback Holden has about his sister is that she is too emotional.
When Holden gets to the Lavender room, he takes a table and attempts to order an alcoholic cocktail. When the waiter questions him on his age, Holden explains that due to his height and grey hair he is able often to buy alcohol, but the waiter refuses to serve him without proof that Holden is eighteen or over. Holden in the end orders a soda, and spots three woman sitting on a table opposite him. He flirts with them and asks which one of them would like to dance with him. They seem amused but uninterested in him, but let him buy drinks for them. One of the woman dances with him but they soon tire of him as they have tolerated him for long enough. They laugh at him, and they also depress him with their love of movie stars. Holden tries to impress one of the girls by telling her he had just seen Gary Cooper, a celebrity in the club. The girl tells the other two girls that she also caught a glimpse of Cooper and they start talking about it. Holden however gets bored and agitated and so leaves the Lavender Club.
Chapter 11:
As Holden leaves the club and walks out into the lobby, he starts to remember the girl that he loves: Jane Callaghan. Their families’ summer homes located in Maine, which were next to each other, and hoe he met her after his own mother confronted her mother about a Doberman Pinscher dog that would frequently relieve itself on the Caulfield’s (Holden’s family) lawn. Holden remembers how he and Jane become close, and how Jane was the only person that he would show Allie’s baseball glove to. One day while the two of them were sitting on her porch Jane’s alcoholic step-father approached them, while she and Holden were playing checkers. The drunkard asked Jane to give him some cigarettes, but Jane was scared and refused to answer him. Soon the drunkard got bored of trying to get her to answer and went inside the house, and Jane began to cry. In an attempt to comfort her Holden held her close, kissing all over her face and telling her it was ‘going to be ok’. Apart from this incident in which Jane let Holden kiss her, their physical relationship was mild, but despite this they would hold hands constantly. Holden tells us that when you hold Jane’s hand, “all you knew was, you were happy. You really were”. Holden’s emotions start to deteriorate and he becomes upset, soon returning to his room after being sat on a vomit looking colored chair. When he gets to his room he sees that the lights in the ‘perverts’ rooms are not lit anymore. Unable to sleep due to being wide awake, Holden grabs his bag, heads downstairs hoping to not bump into the worker who assaulted him and calls for a taxi.
Chapter 12:
When Holden is able to get a cab, he travels to a Greenwich Village’s nightclub named ‘Ernie’s’, a club he used to visit frequently with his older brother D.B. Holden finds out his cab driver’s name is Horwitz, and he takes a liking to him. Holden asks Horwitz the same question he asked the other cab driver, where the ducks go in the winter from the Central Park Lagoon. Horwitz becomes angry unexpectedly and shouts at Holden. He however does tell Holden that the fish freeze in the water, but survive because they absorb food and nutrients from the water into their skin. After that the rest of the journey is silent and Holden soon arrives at Ernie’s club. Inside the club Holden listens to the owner Ernie play the piano professionally, but Holden is unimpressed and says Ernie plays the piano the way he does to impress customers in hope new ones will come. Holden is seated at a table and is able to order a Scotch and Soda. He listens to the conversations of people around him, which to him are depressing and phony. Suddenly a woman approaches him at his table screaming his name, and he finds out that the obnoxious and intoxicated girl is Lillian Simmons, an ex-girlfriend of his older brother. She is with another man who she makes say hello to Holden, and she has a conversation with Holden. Holden soon tires of her and becomes uncomfortable and is forced to leave the club to get away from her.
Chapter 13:
Holden feeling like a coward for leaving the club, walks forty-one blocks all the way back to the hotel. His mood is very low and he feels extremely depressed. On the way to the hotel he thinks about his gloves, which were stolen by someone in Pencey. He remembers how he confronted a boy about them, and found them in his closet. But the boy claimed he did not know how they got there, and Holden left it at that. He realises he is a coward at heart, who is afraid of violence and confrontation, which is why he did not start a fight over the gloves. When Holden reaches his hotel, he takes the elevator to his room and meets the elevator’s operator. The operator offers to send him a prostitute to Holden’s room, after Holden once again lies about his age. Holden is told the fee is $5 and Holden, who is depressed and flustered and so cannot think maturely accepts the offer. When he gets back to his room he thinks about his cowardice, because he believes that due to his cowardice, he has never had the courage to sleep with a woman.
In Holden’s eyes women want men who assert power and control. While he thinks he changes his shirt realising the prostitute will be on her way. Soon she arrives, and introduces herself as Sunny. She in a annoyed tone tells Holden she had been woken up for this meeting, and so Holden had better make use of it. She is a cynical young woman who appears to be sixteen, with a high voice. Holden asks her why she is selling herself and she says it helps her get a living. Holden becomes flustered when she removes her dress, and is forced to sit down before he falls down. Sunny then sits on his lap, trying to seduce him to get him in the mood for sexual intercourse. Holden stutters and tells her he is unable to have sex with her, because he is recovering from a operation to repair his “clavichord”. He lies because he is extremely nervous. Sunny becomes annoyed and demands to know why she was sent to him, if he wasn’t going to have sex with him and Holden says to her he just wanted the company. He pays her the $5 she is owed however, and asks her to leave as he is tired. However Sunny claims her fee is $10 and Holden refuses to pay an extra $5 as he was told it was $5 for the hour. She leaves in a tantrum.
Chapter 14:
After Sunny leaves the hotel room Holden lights his first cigarette of the night and smokes for a while. As he smokes he remembers an incident which happened shortly before Allie’s death, and the event was when Holden had excluded Allie from a BB-gun game, but in the end let him join in. Even after all these years Holden says he still to this day feels guilty that he almost left Allie out of the game, and eventually he retires to his bed for the night. Holden had felt like praying but his personal distaste for organised religion prevents him from doing this, and so he just goes to sleep.
Suddenly someone knocks at the door waking Holden up, and he gets out of bed to investigate. Dressed in his nightwear he opens the door, to discover that it is the elevator operator at the door, with Sunny by his side. He states to Holden he is here to claim the extra $5 he owes Sunny, but Holden tries to refuse to pay him stating he was told it was $5 for the hour, as she had not stayed the whole night. In anger Maurice pushes Holden and pins him against the wall, while Sunny looks around for Holden’s wallet. Soon she finds it and takes the money she is ‘owed’ and begs the operator to leave Holden alone. However this does not happen as Holden tries to be brave and fights back verbally to the man. The operator gets angry and snaps his fingers on Holden’s groin, which causes him severe pain. Appearing to be unaffected Holden continues to verbally insult him, so the operator finishes him off with a good fist punch to the stomach, which winds Holden and causes him to fall onto the floor in agony. When the man and Sunny leaves Holden stays on the floor for some time, and while he lies on the floor he imagines he is a movie character, taking his revenge on the man by shooting him in the gut with a pistol. After about an hour Holden manages to rise from the floor and go back to his bed to sleep.
Chapter 15:
When morning arrives Holden calls an old friend, Sally Hayes and arranges a date with her. He plans to meet with her later that afternoon. Grabbing his bags he cautiously leaves the room, making sure he does not bump into his attacker from the night before. When he arrives on the ground floor of the hotel he checks out and heads to the Grand Central Station. Realising he can’t carry his belongings with him when he meets with Sally he places his bag in a locker at the station, but worries about losing his money and mentions to the reader that his father would frequently get angry at him when he lost his things. Holden also describes his mother a small amount, telling us that she “hasn’t felt too healthy since my brother Allie died”. Holden then worries that the news of his expulsion from Pencey will distress his fragile mother even more, and this shows he cares about her a great deal.
Deciding to go for breakfast he heads to a small sandwich bar, and orders a simple breakfast of toast and eggs. Here he meets two nuns who are moving to the city of Manhattan to teach in a school. He talks with the two nuns and offers them a $10 charity donation, but they refuse it politely. Holden forces them to take it however, and then finds out one of the nuns will teach English, and the other History. He talks with the English teacher nun about the book Romeo and Juliet. After they leave he realises he needs money for his date with Sally, and soon regrets giving the two nuns only $10. Due to this he comes to the conclusion that money always makes people distressed. Period.
Chapter 16:
After Holden finishes breakfast he decides to go for a walk, and while he walks he thinks about the selflessness of the nuns he met and cannot imagine anybody he knows who would be so generous and giving to others. Heading down to Broadway he aims to buy a record called “Little Shirley Beans” for his sister Phoebe. Holden likes the record because even though it is for children, it is sung by a black blues singer whose vocal style makes it sound raunchy, and not cute. Thinking about his sister he considers her to be a wonderful girl, because even though she is only ten years old she always understands what Holden means when he has a conversation with her. As he is walking he sees an oblivious young boy who is a child walking down the street, singing “If a body catch a body coming through the rye”. The innocence of the child and the scene cheers Holden up, and he decides to call Jane. But he hangs up when her mother answers the phone instead of Jane herself. In preparation for his date with Sally he purchases theatre tickets, tickets to a show called “I Know My Love” starring the Lunts.
Holden soon wants to see his little sister Phoebe, and so he goes to look for her in the local park as he remembers she often roller-skates there on the seventh day of the week. At the park he does not meet his sister, but he meets a girl know knows her. At first the girl tells him that Phoebe is on a school trip to the Natural History Museum, but then as soon as Holden is about to head there she remembers that the trip was the previous day. Saying thank you and taking his leave of the girl Holden heads to the Museum, and as he walks to it he remembers his own school trips. As he walks he focuses on the way life is frozen in the Museum’s glass encases exhibits: the models of the ancient Eskimos and the American Indians, standing in a frozen lifeless expression. He remarks to the reader that every time he went to the Museum he felt that he had changed as a person, while the Museum stayed the exact same.
Chapter 17:
When two o’ clock strikes on the clock Holden heads out to meet Sally at the Biltmore Hotel, but she is late arriving. When she does arrive Holden notices how attractive she looks and so instantly forgives her lateness. Getting a taxi the two sit in the back and make out with each other, while the driver heads to the theatre under Holden’s command. When they arrive at the theatre they decide to see a show which both of them will like, however Holden becomes annoyed by the actors in the play simply because like Ernie the piano player at the club they are almost TOO good at what they professionally do, and seem to be full of themselves.
During the intermission of the show, Holden becomes irritated when Sally who is his date starts flirting with a boy from Andover, another prep school near Pencey but Holden shakes off the fact Sally is flirting with this boy. Holden agrees to take Sally ice-skating at “Radio City” ice-skating rink in a bid to impress her due to the fact she felt the need to flirt with another male. Holden while he is skating with Sally begins to speculate that Sally only wanted to go to an ice-skating rink to skate was so she could wear a short skirt in a bid to show off her “cute ass”, but despite this Holden admits in the chapter he finds her bottom attractive.
While the two of them sit down indoors to take a break, Holden begins to unravel. He oscillates between shouting and speaking in hushed tones, and he rants about the “phonies” in his old prep school and in the New York society. He tells Sally about how alienated he feels, and after a while he becomes more crazy in the mind and impetuous saying to Sally that the two of them should run away together, and escape society living on their own in a cabin.
After hearing Holden’s idea Sally points out to Holden that his dreams for them both are ‘ridiculous’, and as a result he becomes more and more agitated with her. The two of them soon fall into a quarrel which builds up until Holden calls Sally a “royal pain in the ass”, which upsets Sally greatly and she begins to cry. Holden feeling terrible and realising what he has just said starts to frantically apologize to her, but she is so upset and angry with him she refuses to listen. He soon leaves without her.
Chapter 18:
After leaving Sally at the ice-skating rink Holden heads into a drugstore, and consumes a Swiss cheese sandwich and a malted milk. While eating his lunch Holden thinks about calling Jane, but his mind soon begins to wander from that thought. He starts to remember the time he saw Jane at a dance, with a boy Holden thought off as a show-off, but Jane when she found out this opinion argued in the boy’s defence that the boy had an inferiority complex. Holden soon decides that girls always come up with that excuse so that they can date arrogant boys, but he soon calls Jane anyway. She does not answer his call.
He then calls a boy he knows named Carl Luce, who he used to know at the Whooton School, and to his delight Luce agrees to meet Holden for drinks later that night.
In a bid to kill time Holden goes to see a movie at Radio City, despite hating movies but he knows it will be a good way to kill some time until he is able to see his friend. Holden watches the Rockettes’ Christmas stage show and he finds it ridiculous and superficial, but he remembers how he and Allie used to love the kettledrum player in the Radio City pit orchestra due to watching the show.
The kettledrum player was an unnoticed and minuscule part of the show, but despite this he always seemed to take great pride and joy in doing what he did. After the show the movie Holden has paid to see begins, and he claims it was just as boring as the show before it. When the show is finished Holden begins to walk to the Wicker Bar where he is supposed to meet his friend Luce. We find out that the movie Holden has just watched in this chapter was about the war, so Holden begins to think about the army as a result of watching this film. Thinking about what D.B has told him, Holden concludes that he could never join the military and that he would rather (as he says in his own words) be shot by a firing squad or sit on top of an atom bomb which is ready to explode.
Chapter 19:
While Holden relaxes in the Wicker Bar which is located in the posh Seton Hotel, he thinks about his friend Luce.