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The novel opens with the narrator, Holden Caulfield, a seventeen-year-old
One Saturday night, after an unpleasant experience with his history
He then leaves to meet his former teacher, Mr. Antolini. They have a good
boy from New York City, telling the story of three days in his life. The
whole narrative is a coming to terms with the past, since Holden tells it
from a psychiatric institution. It is the adult world that has driven him
insane. He just cannot relate to anyone except for his kid sister Phoebe.
Everything and all other people seem "phony" to him. Holden is unable to
accept life. Since Holden is becoming an adult himself, he is unhappy with
what he will represent. He flunks out of three boarding schools in a row,
the latest of them Pencey Prep, which is also where the first part of the
story takes place.
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teacher "Old Spencer," his roommate Stradlater and the boy next door,
Robert Ackley, Holden decides to leave Pencey four days early for Christmas
break. He knows that he cannot return to his parents because they are not
aware that he has been expelled again. Holden spends the next three days
wandering aimlessly around New York City. He stays at a cheap hotel for
one night, goes to two night clubs, dances with older women, often talks
and thinks about sex, even has a prostitute come up to his room. The next
day, he talks with some nuns about literature and has a date with his former
girlfriend Sally Woodruff. They go to the theater and also go ice-skating.
When he asks her to run away with him, she gets mad and they part. He
is "depressed," at this time Holden thinks and even talks to his deceased
brother Allie. To Holden, Allie represented innocence. With nobody else
around, Holden turns to the only person he can relate to, his sister Phoebe.
He sneaks into his parent's apartment at night to talk to his sister. He
tells her about his dream to be a "catcher in the rye," and that he wants
to run away.
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talk, but Holden leaves in a hurry when he thinks his host makes a sexual
advance on him. He spends the night in a train station, then runs around
town. Finally, he meets his sister, who tells him she wants to run away
with him and that she will never go back to school. Holden sees himself in
her, finally changes his mind and decides to go back to his parents. We are
able to conclude that Holden then is sent to a mental hospital for treatment.
♥
