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chapter 1
- Holden is a sixteen-year-old. -just been expelled for academic failure from a school called Pencey Prep
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chapter 2
-Spencer tries to lecture Holden about his academic failures.
-Spencer tries to convince Holden to think about his future. -
chapter 3
-Holden lives in Ossenburger Hall
-Ackley does not seem to have many friends. -
chapter 4
-Holden goes to the bathroom with Stradlater and talks to him while he shaves.
-Stradlater borrows Holden’s hound’s-tooth jacket. -
chapter 5
-Holden cannot think of anything to say about a house or a room, so he writes about a baseball glove that his brother Allie used to copy poems onto in green ink.
- He also recounts that the night Allie died, he slept in the garage and broke all the windows with his bare hands. -
chapter 6
-Stradlater barges into the room.
- When Stradlater nonchalantly refuses to tell Holden any of the details, Holden attacks him, but Stradlater pins him to the floor and tries to get him to calm down. -
chapter 8
-Holden walks the entire way to the train station and catches a late train to New York.
-Holden tells her his own name is Rudolph Schmidt, which is actually the school janitor’s name. -
chapter 7
-Holden talks for a while with Ackley
-Ackley is annoyed by the conversation -
chapter 9
-his brother, D. B., is in Hollywood; his sister, Phoebe, is young and probably asleep; he doesn’t feel like calling Jane Gallagher; and another girl, Sally Hayes, has a mother who hates him. -
chapter 10
-Holden changes his shirt and goes downstairs to the Lavender Room, the Edmont’s nightclub.
-He notes Phoebe’s humor and cleverness, and mentions that she writes never-ending fictional stories that feature a character named “Hazle” Weatherfield. -
chapter 11
-Their families’ summer homes in Maine were next door to one another.
-One day, Jane’s alcoholic stepfather came out to the porch where Holden and Jane were playing checkers and asked Jane for cigarettes; Jane refused to answer him. -
chapter 14
-Holden sits in his hotel room and smokes for a while.
-Holden tries to refuse, but Maurice pins him against a wall while Sunny takes the money from his wallet. -
chapter 12
-Holden takes a cab to a Greenwich Village nightclub called Ernie’s, a spot he used to frequent.
- He encounters an obnoxious girl named Lillian Simmons, whom D. B. used to date, and is forced to leave the nightclub to get away from her. -
chapter 13
-Feeling like a coward for leaving Ernie’s, Holden walks the forty-one blocks from the nightclub back to the hotel.
- He imagines an elaborate confrontation with the unknown thief, but he acknowledges that he is a coward at heart, afraid of violence and confrontation. -
chapter 14
-Holden tries to refuse, but Maurice pins him against a wall while Sunny takes the money from his wallet.
-Holden tries to refuse, but Maurice pins him against a wall while Sunny takes the money from his wallet. -
chapter 15
-Holden calls Sally Hayes and makes a date with her for later that afternoon.
-Holden goes to eat breakfast at a little sandwich bar, where he meets two nuns who are moving to Manhattan to teach in a school. -
chapter 16
-Holden goes for a walk.
-The innocence of the scene cheers him up, and holden decides to call Jane -
chapter 17
- Holden goes to meet Sally at the Biltmore Hotel; she is late but looks very attractive, so he immediately forgives her tardiness. They make out in the taxi on the way to the theater. -The quarrel builds until Holden calls.
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chapter 18
- Holden goes to a drugstore and has a Swiss cheese sandwich and a malted milk.
- He then calls a boy named Carl Luce, whom he used to know at the Whooton School, and Luce agrees to meet him for drinks later that night.
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chapter 19
- Holden thinks about Luce. -Holden remembers that Luce’s father is a psychoanalyst, but Luce is evasive when Holden asks whether Luce’s father ever analyzed his own son.
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chapter 20
-Holden stays at the bar and gets very drunk.
-He leaves the park and begins the long walk home. -
chapter 21
-Holden takes the elevator up to his family’s apartment.
- Holden tries to justify his behavior, but she refuses to listen and covers her head with a pillow. Holden leaves the room to get some cigarettes. -
chapter 22
-Holden returns to Phoebe’s room and eventually gets her to listen.
-He wants to stand at the edge of the cliff and catch the children when they come too close to falling off—to be “the catcher in the rye.” -
chapter 23
-Holden leaves Phoebe’s room for a moment to call Mr. Antolini, an English teacher he had at Elkton Hills.
-Holden tries to fan away his lingering cigarette smoke and jumps in the closet. -
chapter 24
-When Holden arrives at Mr. Antolini’s, Mr. Antolini and his wife have just wrapped up a dinner party in their upscale Sutton Place apartment.
-Holden reveals that he disliked the rules and regulations at Pencey Prep. -
chapter 17
-Holden goes to meet Sally at the Biltmore Hotel; she is late but looks very attractive, so he immediately forgives her tardiness.
-The quarrel builds until Holden calls Sally a “royal pain in the ass,”