By Jerome David Salinger

The Catcher In The Rye

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The story begins when Holden Caulfield is expelledfrom Pencey Prep and the following days. After a shortvisit to a teacher and a conflict with a roommate hedecides to head home early.

He takes the train to New York but does not want to return to his family and instead checks in an dilapidated hotel. Here he dances with three girls and has an encounter with a prostitute,Sunny, but as soon as she enters the room Holden becomesuncomfortable with the situation and all he does is talk.

Despite the fact that Holden paid Sunny, she laterreturns with her pimp, demanding more money that wasoriginally agreed upon.

Plot Summary

Holden then invites his old girlfriend, Sally, to gosee a musical. After the play they go skating, and Holden asksSally to move with him to the Midwest but she quickly refusesand walks away from him.

He sneaks into his parents apartment to speak with her littlesister, Phoebe. After the visit he decides to stop by to a formerEnglish teacher which offers him a place to sleep and someadvice on life. After being woken up by Mr. Antolini, he leavesand spends the afternoon in the city, making the decision tohead out west.

After sharing this with her little sister, she decides she wantsto leave with him. This will make Holden to change his plansand go home.

The book ends with Holden in a hospital, and his futureplan of joining a new school in September.

Holden Caulfield is the seventeen-year-oldprotagonist of The Catcher In The Rye novel.

Physically, Holden is tall, thin and has red hair withsome gray showing.

Due to his physical look, Holden considers himself asbeing mature yet through his behavior he proves thecontrary.

He continually fails classes, gets expelled and callshimself “dumb”, yet he shows intelligence by narratingand interest in books.

Characterization of Holden Caulfield

He has a well contoured opinion about every man he meets,often criticizing and considering them inferior, arrogant, hollowand fake. A habit that will make integration in society hard forHolden.

He is polite, and he does not say rude things to girls, althoughhe finds them weird.

He likes having audience, characterizing himself as being aflasher.

He can`t stand fighting, saying he is a pacifist and a coward.Holden is sentimentally unstable, nervous, his state of mind

rapidly changing.He is immature minded, acting like a senile person only to

escape from the state of boredom.He hates the word “wonderful”, considering it as being fake.Just like other teenagers, Holden breaks the rules, even those

imposed by him.

He thinks everything is made only for show off and thathe is surrounded by hypocrites, the only normal personsbeing his siblings.

He has a lot of melancholic moments, time when he isfeeling along and sad.

In his view, he is the greatest liar.

Not so different from teenagers in our days, Holden thinks

that no one can understand him, that his accumulatedknowledge makes him stand on top of the world everyoneelse being inferior to him, the only option for him isfleeing somewhere alone with his thoughts.

Presentation made by Andreea VassEmanuel Pop