Summary “The Catcher in the Rye” by Salinger
The seventeen-year-old teenager Holden Caulfield promises to tell the reader the crazy story that happened to him last Christmas. He does not intend to disclose his biography in detail and especially talk about parents who do not like to take out “dirty underwear”. Holden’s native brother – DB lives in Hollywood, next to the sanatorium in which the character is now.
Holden Caulfield studied in Pensi – a closed high school in Egerstown, in the state of Pennsylvania. He was the captain of the team of fencers, but after the collapse of four items he was kicked out of the school. Before leaving Holden watches the football match, says goodbye to the school and history teacher – old Spencer.
A flu-sensitive teacher asks the hero about expulsion from school, scolds him for not thinking about life. Old Spencer does not like Holden. He almost regrets coming to say goodbye to him. Holden recalls that he left the Elkton Hill school because everything
From Spencer Holden goes to the hostel, where he sits to read the book “In the wilds of Africa.” Robert Ackley, a high school student, comes into his room. He is nasty, both in nature and in appearance (he has rotten teeth and pimples all over his face). Ackley prevents Holden from reading, asks for scissors to cut his nails. The protagonist tells Robert that he hates his roommate Stradlater for the fact that the latter asked him to at least occasionally brush his teeth.
Stradlater’s arrival causes Ackley to leave. Holden follows his neighbor to the bathroom, watches him shave, chatting with him. Stradlater asks the hero to write for him an essay on English. He himself can not do this, because he goes on a date with Jane Gallagher. Holden begins to worry: a couple of years ago, this girl was his roommate and best friend.
After dinner, Holden with friends and Ackley travels to Egerstown. In the evening the hero sits down for the composition, but instead of the picturesque description of the room he writes about the baseball mitt of his younger brother Allie, who
Stradlater comes back from a date. Holden tries to find out how it went. He was angry with his roommate because he was squeezed by Jane in the car. The guys are fighting in the bathroom. Stradleyter breaks Holden’s nose. Blood floods the face and pajamas of the protagonist.
Holden heads to Ackley’s room. He lays down on the next bed and does not stop thinking about how Stradlater got confused with Jane. From these thoughts, Holden becomes uneasy, and he decides to leave for New York. On the train next to him sits the mother of Ernest Morrow – one of the nastiest guys, students in Pansy. Holden lies all the way to her about how modest and kind her son is.
In New York, the hero stops at the hotel “Egmont”. He thinks for a long time who to call and, finally, dials the number of Faye Cavendish – a friend he knows. He asks the girl to drink a cocktail with him, but she refuses, citing night and fatigue. Holden remembers her younger sister, a ten-year-old clever Phoebe, wants to call her, but is afraid that one of the parents will approach the phone.
Holden descends into the “Lilac Hall” of the hotel. The waiter refuses to give him whiskey with a soda as a minor. The hero invites to dance a pretty blonde, at thirty, named Bernice. She is from Seattle, she does not know how to keep up the conversation, but she dances divinely. Her two ugly girlfriends – Marty and Laverne – match her, only they dance worse. All the girls, like one, are obsessed with Hollywood actors and are just waiting for their appearance in the Lilac Hall. After the restaurant is closed, the girls leave. Holden sits in the hall and remembers how she and Jane played checkers, how he kissed her face when she cried, how they held hands in the movies and how the girl stroked his head lovingly with love.
Holden goes to Ernie’s nightclub – a virtuoso playing on the Negro piano. On the way, he asks Gorwitz taxi driver what happens to ducks from the Central Park in winter, when the lake they swim freezes. The taxi driver is terribly nervous, but supports the conversation, gradually turning to fish.
Ernie Holden meets the former girlfriend of her brother DB – Lillian Simmons with a naval officer. He does not want to spend an evening with them and leaves the tavern. Holden walks on the streets of New York and reflects that he is a coward.
At the hotel the lifter offers Holden a girl for the night and the one agrees with surprise. Waiting for the prostitute, the young man is nervous. He is a virgin and does not know how to behave properly with a woman. Arrived in the room girl Sunny – very young. Holden tries to talk to her, refuses sex and pays five dollars called by the elevator operator.
At dawn, a lift attendant comes to the room with a prostitute. They require Holden five more dollars. The guy is not going to give them away. Sunny takes money from the wallet while the lifter holds Holden. A young man insults the lifter. The latter strongly hits him in the stomach.
At ten in the morning Holden wakes up and calls his girlfriend Sally Hayes. He agrees to go with her to the theater, then leaves the hotel and goes to the Central Station. Breakfast Holden next to two nuns, who donate ten dollars for charity.
After breakfast, Holden calls Jane, but does not find her at home. Then he goes to the park where he thinks to meet Phoebe. Among the skating girls younger sister Holden there. To pass the time to the play the hero goes to the Ethnographic Museum, but at the entrance decides to return.
At the Baltimore Hotel, Holden waits for Sally, watching the numerous girls waiting for their cavaliers. In a taxi, young people kiss and admit to each other in love.
Holden misses the play. After the first act, she and Sally go to smoke. The girl introduces Holden to George, an aristocratic dude. With him, she talks all intermissions. After the performance, Sally suggests Holden go ice skating in Radio City. In the cafe the hero tells the girl that he hates everything around him and suggests to run away. Sally is against. Young men swear, and Holden suggests the girl to roll on all four sides.
In the afternoon Holden goes to the cinema for a film about the English duke, who lost his memory and fell in love with a simple girl. Then he meets in the Vicker bar of the luxurious “Soten-Hotel” with Carl Lewis – his former tutor-high school student at the Hutton School. An old acquaintance, always well versed in sex, lives with a thirty-year-old Chinese sculptor. He drinks a couple of martini glasses with Holden and leaves. The hero drinks alone at the bar until one in the morning. He wants to call Jane, but instead dials Sally’s number and promises to come to her on Christmas Eve to clean the tree.
Walking in the Central Park, Holden breaks the plate, bought as a gift from Phoebe, and decides to go home to secretly talk with her sister from her parents. He finds Phoebe sleeping in the office of her elder brother DB reads her notebooks, then wakes up the girl. Waking up, the little sister tells Holden about the school play in which she will be playing at Christmas, about the film seen with her friend and her mother. Suddenly, Phoebe realizes that her brother was kicked out of school again. Holden tells her how disgusting in Pansy. Phoebe accuses him of the fact that he does not like any school and nothing like it at all. Holden recalls James Castle, a boy who died fighting six scum. He liked him!
Holden calls his former English teacher – Mr. Antolini. He dances with Phoebe to the music broadcast on the radio, and leaves when parents return.
In a posh apartment at Sutton Place, Holden tells Mr. Antolini about why he failed in his speech. The teacher does not know what to advise Holden, but believes that he swiftly rushes to a terrible abyss. At night, the hero awakens from the fact that Mr. Antolini is stroking his head. Not wanting to stay in the “nuthouse” apartment, Holden leaves. He sleeps at the Central Station, and in the morning begins to feel remorse: it seems to him that Mr. Antolini patted his head “just like that.”
In the morning Holden walks along Fifth Avenue. New York is getting ready for Christmas. Suddenly, the hero becomes ill. Sitting on a bench, he decides to go to the West. Phoebe wants to escape with him. Holden promises to stay home. She and Phoebe go to the zoo. The girl is riding a carousel. Holden soaks in the rain, falls ill and gets into a sanatorium.
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