Summary Holden awakes around 10:00 Sunday morning. He phones an old girlfriend, Sally Hayes, and makes a date to meet her at 2:00 p.m. to catch a theater matinee. Holden checks out of the hotel and leaves his bags at a lock box in Grand Central Station. While eating a […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 15Summary and Analysis Chapter 14
Summary It is dawn on Sunday by the time that Sunny exits. Holden smokes a couple of cigarettes and reflects on his relationship with his deceased brother, Allie, as well as his feelings about religion. He is summoned by a knock on the door. Sunny has returned with Maurice and […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 14Summary and Analysis Chapter 13
Summary Holden is tired of taxis and walks the forty-one blocks back to the hotel, wearing his red hunting cap with the earflaps down, missing his pilfered gloves, and bemoaning his cowardice. The elevator man, Maurice, doubles as a pimp and offers to provide Holden with female companionship for “five […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 13Summary and Analysis Chapter 12
Summary On the way to Ernie’s, Holden discusses ducks, fish, and winter with the cab driver. At the club, Holden expresses his opinions concerning the aesthetics of performance, Ernie, the crowd in general, and a nearby couple in particular. Lillian Simmons, a former girlfriend of D.B., pops by his table […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 12Summary and Analysis Chapter 11
Summary This short chapter is devoted almost exclusively to Holden’s recollections of Jane Gallagher. Sitting in a “vomity-looking” chair in the lobby of the Edmont Hotel, he remembers how they met and what they did the summer before his sophomore year. He thinks he knows her “like a book.” Despite […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 11Summary and Analysis Chapter 10
Summary Holden claims that it is still early, but it is actually quite late. However, the Lavender Room, a lounge off the lobby of the Edmont Hotel, is still open. After providing a detailed recollection of his younger sister, Phoebe, Holden visits the Lavender Room and meets three women, tourists […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 10Summary and Analysis Chapters 8-9
Summary It is too late to get a taxi in Agerstown so Holden walks to the train station. He lowers the earflaps on his hunting cap to protect against the cold. En route to New York City, he is joined at Trenton by an attractive woman who turns out to […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapters 8-9Summary and Analysis Chapters 6-7
Summary The events of the rest of the evening are a little blurred in Holden’s memory. Stradlater returns around 11:00 or so and reads the theme paper Holden has written, while unbuttoning his shirt and stroking his chest. Stradlater is in love with himself. Of course, he doesn’t understand Holden’s […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapters 6-7Summary and Analysis Chapter 5
Summary After a lackluster trip to town with Ackley and another student, Holden settles in to compose the descriptive theme paper for Stradlater. He decides to write about his brother Allie’s left-handed baseball glove. Allie died of leukemia on July 18, 1946, while the family was vacationing in Maine. Holden […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 5Summary and Analysis Chapter 4
Summary Although the dorms have showers separating rooms, the toilets and sinks are down the hall. Having nothing better to do, Holden accompanies his roommate, Stradlater, as he prepares for a Saturday night date. Holden is first shocked and then concerned when he learns that his roommate’s date that night […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 4