Catcher In The Rye Study Questions And Answers

Holden allows the reader to hypothesize that he is attracted to a girl named Jane Gallagher, by constantly telling of his fond memories of her, but when push comes to shove his tendency to alienation himself from society, to "protect himself from losing his innocence", takes him over. On page 116 of the novel, Holden tells the reader that after he got his sister a record he went to a phone booth and called Jane's house. But when her mother picked up the phone he hung up. Holden tells the reader that he "didn't feel like getting into a long conversation with her mother" so he hung up but in reality Holden's personal preference of alienating himself frightened him and prevented him of making any contact with Jane.

      Holden's conflict with Maurice demonstrates his sincerity and his hatred in the evilness of the phony. Primarily, Holden is vigorously pushed to protect himself from Maurice. Holden arranges to spend time with Sunny a prostitute, and later is forced to pay double the agreed amount by Maurice, the hotel elevator operator. Maurice demands, 'Want your parents to know you spent the night with a whore? High-class kid like you?' He was pretty sharp, in his crumby way. He really was. 'Leave me alone. If you'd said ten, it'd be different. But you distinctly.';(Salinger 102) Holden is struggling to secure himself, by attempting to end the fight. Secondly, the evilness of the phony is shown during his conflict with Maurice. Holden cries, 'All of a sudden I started to cry. I'd give anything if I hadn't, but I did. 'No, you're no crooks,' I said. 'You're just steeling five' 'Shut up,' old Maurice said and gave me a shove.';(Salinger 103) The evil scenery causes Holden to, uncontrollably break down in tears. Holden's hatred of the phony is grown, as well as the protecting of the innocence. In addition to his physical conflicts with

    Holden is a very dramatic character. Holden took this girl Sally out on a date. They were having a very good time. He took her to an ice skating ring. After a while Holden started to complain about his life and says something disturbing. He stated, “here’s my idea. I know this guy down Greenwich Village that we can borrow his car for a couple of weeks. We could drive up to Massachusetts and Vermont, and all around there see. I have about one hundred and eighty dollars in the bank. I can take it out when the bank opens. Well stay in these cabin camps and stuff like that till the dough runs out. I could get a job or somewhere and we can live somewhere with a brook and, and later on, we can get married or something.” He is only 16 years old saying he wants to run

When Holden comes home, he stops and buys "Little Shirley Beans" record for Phoebe (p 114). Even though it breaks, he still gives it to her. She loves it just as much as if it were not broken. Holden remembers Allie by his baseball mitt with the poems on it (p. 39). When Holden tried to bring meaning into the adult way of things, he was outcast. After he told Maurice to send up a prostitute, he did not score with her but he tried to talk to her (p. 95).  He tried to make something meaningful out of it but Sunny did not understand. It does not matter if Stradlater gave Jane the time on their date, but whatever they did meant absolutely nothing to either one of them. Stradlater could not even get her name right (p.31). The three girls Holden meets in the bar may be the worst of all. They could care less about anybody, but would die to get with a movie star (p. 72). These memories show thought and love which are a lot stronger than these empty sexual conquests.

Holden’s date with Sally Hayes exhibited his difficulty at cooperating with others. At first he gives us a dire impression of Sally, “I wasn’t too crazy about her, but I’d known her for years.” (p. 105) Later, he wants to marry Sally and says he is in love with her. The biggest mystery of all when it comes to women is with Jane Gallagher. Constantly mentioning Jane, Holden recalls playing checkers with her before he got sent to boarding school. When his roommate, Stradlater, has a date with Jane, Holden asks him a peculiar question, “Did you ask her if she still keeps all her kings in the back row?” (p. 42) Holden, jealous of Stradlater’s date with Jane, longs to see Jane but never has the courage to call her. Interactions with other people especially women perplex and overwhelm Holden. He therefore resorts to isolation, illustrating a characteristic of his mental state.

A little girl, she shows her love when she walks between her brothers holding hands, and most importantly, “[She’d] be listening” (68). Phoebe comes to represent an innocence and lack of self-consciousness that Holden is deeply missing in his life. Phoebe also provides what Holden needs, someone to listen to him. Yet she is too young to understand much of what

In chapters eight through ten of the book, The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, Holden becomes desperate for an interaction with someone he likes, after having a bad night. Instead of calling up one of his friends and talking to them, Holden attempts to have interaction which fills the void. After getting punched by his roommate, Stradlater, over a fight they had because Holden believed Stradlater was mistreating a girl, he starts looking for someone to make him feel better. First, he tries to get consolidation from Ackley, the boy in the dorm next to him. Ackley ends up indirectly telling him that he can not sleep in his dorm by saying, “I can’t just tell somebody they can sleep in his goddamn bed”, when Holden asks to share the room with

He fantasizes what their sex life could have been like, but he is not mature enough to actually have one.

Holden’s silence can be attributed to Maurice’s suggestion that he’s reluctant his parents will learn he “spent a night with a whore,” (Salinger 111). His mother is prone to nerves, so Holden’s father, a corporation lawyer, is the disciplinarian. Holden respects his father but doubts the altruism of his occupation. Of lawyers, he says; “Even if you did go around saving guys’ lives and all, how would you know if you did it because you really wanted to save guys’ lives

Holden is deathly afraid of conforming, growing up, and having to assimilate into the phony adult world. As a result he comes off as hypocritical as he is the most prominent phony in the novel. He constantly lies, refuses to connect with others and overlooks his own pain, letting it deeply impact his life. Holden is a compulsive liar; he does not have one honest conversation with anyone except his sister and Jane for the duration of the novel. When he is on the train with Mrs. Morrow, for instance, he claims his name is Rudolf Schmidt and preaches about what an amazing guy her son is, even though he is “the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey, in the whole crumby history of the school.” (61) This shows that Holden falls victim to the same social conventions as everyone else. He says exactly what Mrs. Morrow wants to hear, despite the fact that he

Holden also loses his innocence when he accepts the inevitability of growing up. When he visits the Natural History Museum, Holden notes that the exhibits

Jane Gallagher remains a constant though out the entire novel. She represents the way of life he once followed, and the track he should be on but doesn't get back to. He never calls her because he claims he isn't "in the mood" (Salinger 33). This emphasizes that Holden is trying to avoid finding his purpose, his track, because the truth, like the

The understandings that he has come up with about being both a child and an adult allow Holden to leave himself far from the world by protecting himself by not trusting people’s motives in life. As the book goes deeper into the story, we can see that Holden’s experiences, especially those where he meets Mr. Antolini and his sister Phoebe, show how his conceptions have become of little

“I don’t like any shows very much, if you want to know the truth. They’re not as bad as movies, but they’re certainly nothing to rave about. In the first place, I hate actors. They never act like people. They just think they do. Some of the good ones do, in a very slight way, but not in a way that’s fun to watch. And if any actor’s good, you can always tell he knows he’s good, and that spoils it…If an actor acts it out, I hardly listen. I keep worrying about whether he’s going to do something phony every minute.” He finds the theater phony because instead of demonstrating reality as it is, the emphasis is placed on polishing it theatrically. Holden feels anger towards his brother because “he’s out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute.” He considered that D.B. was selling himself to Hollywood, which is why he called D.B. a prostitute. He considers the movies phony and hates them so much that “… I don’t think I could ever do it with somebody that sits in a stupid movie all day long” when Sunny the prostitute was in his room. When he dances with Bernice Crabs/Krebs, he considers her a moron partially because she was on the lookout for actors at the bar because she had seen an actor the previous night. Also, it depressed him that they were planning on waking up early the next day to see the first show at Radio City Music Hall. Holden’s criticism towards the phony things in society is the most important part of his personality because it shows that

The Cather in The Rye is an eye-opening book about the phoniness of our society and the loss of innocence. J.D. Salinger, the author, was said to be crazy for writing such a book. Holden, sees the ‘phonies’, but takes not liking them to an extreme.