Jerome David Salinger was born in 1919 on New Year’s Day. Growing up in New York City, he soon learned all about the bustle of the city. His parents were Sol Salinger, a wealthy ham importer, and Miriam Salinger. Salinger attended New York public high school and was considered an average student in most subjects. …
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“Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.”: Mr. Spencer in chapter 2. This quote is ironic since Holden never believes that life is a game. In fact, he believes the opposite— he is deathly serious about life, and he doesn’t accept the rules set before him …
J. D. Salinger presents an image of an atypical adolescent boy in The Catcher in the Rye. Holden is much more than a troubled teen going through “a phase.” Indeed Holden is a very special boy with special needs. He doesn’t understand and doesn’t wish to understand the world around him. In fact most of …
Holden’s hunting hat: represents Holden’s isolation from society; he loves this hat because it symbolizes his independence from others; the hat, like Holden, is out of place in such a big city as New York; Holden sees himself as the catcher in the rye when he wears this hat; he tries to articulate this when …
Holden narrator and main character; adolescent young boy, age sixteen, who searches for people and things which aren’t phony; envisions himself as a “catcher in the rye” who saves small children from death; throughout the story Holden attempts to preserve the innocence and genuineness of life, though his mental sickness prevents him from separating good …
Chapter 21: This chapter is the first one in which Salinger actually describes genuine inter-personal relations. In this chapter Holden sneaks into his own house in order to say hello to Phoebe. It’s obvious that Phoebe is the only person in Holden’s life now worth mentioning. Holden sneaks into her room in the middle of …
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Chapter 16: Salinger’s sixteenth chapter begins with Holden taking a walk. It seems Holden always needs to be engaged in some kind of action in order to think deeply. Holden admits that he can’t stop thinking about the nuns he met. Soon he decides to buy a record for Phoebe called “Little Shirley Beans.” On …
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Chapter 11: Salinger’s eleventh chapter beings with Holden thinking about Jane Gallagher. He describes many of the childhood experiences the two of them had together. One such experience is when she and Holden were playing checkers on the back porch of her house when her stepfather started yelling at her. Soon Jane began to cry …
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Chapter 6: Chapter six marks a major turning point for Holden. This turning point is found in the physical struggle between Holden and Stradlater. After Stradlater returns from his date with Jane, he asks Holden if he’s written his composition for him. Stradlater reads the paper and quickly shoots it down, saying that a description …
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Chapter 1: Salinger’s first chapter introduces the main character and narrator— Holden. The first and second-person narration engages both the psychologist to whom he is speaking as well as the reader. The reader is first struck by the lack of organization which Holden employs to convey his message. The stream-of-consciousness narration seems to have no …
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