Major works

• The Catcher in the Rye (1951) Holden Caulfield

• Nine Stories (1953)

• Franny and Zooey (1961)

The Catcher in the Rye is a novel by J.D. Salinger. First published in the US in 1951, the novel remains controversial to this day for its liberal profanity and portrayal of sexuality and teenage angst; it was the thirteenth most frequently challenged book of the 1990s according to the American Library Association.

The novel has become one of the most famous literary works of the 20th century, and a common part of high school curricula in many English-speaking countries, such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Around 250,000 copies are sold each year, with total sales of more than 60 million.

The novel's protagonist, Holden Caulfield, has become an icon for teenage alienation and fear. Written in the first person, The Catcher in the Rye relates Holden's experiences in New York City in the days following his expulsion from Pencey Prep, a college preparatory school.

Holden Caulfield is the protagonist and narrator of the story. Holden is a sixteen year old with a bit of grey hair making him look more mature, who has just been expelled (for academic failure) from a school called Pencey Prep. He is intelligent and sensitive, but Holden narrates in a cynical and jaded voice. He finds the hypocrisy and ugliness of the world around him almost unbearable, and through his cynicism he tries to protect himself from the pain and disappointment of the adult world. However, the criticisms that Holden aims at people around him are also aimed at himself. He is uncomfortable with his own weaknesses, and at times displays the exact phoniness, meanness, and superficiality of the people he says he despises. Holden fails to view himself as the child that he is.

The novel covers a few important days in the life of the protagonist Holden Morrissey Caulfield, a tall, lanky, highly critical and depressed sixteen-year-old who academically flunked out of Pencey Prep boarding school. Because he is so critical of others, and points out their faults only to exhibit them himself later, Holden is widely considered to be an unreliable narrator, and the details and events of his story are apt to be distorted by his point of view. Nonetheless, it is his story to tell. Many flashbacks throughout the entire book create a feeling of knowing Holden.

On the first page of the book, the reader is given a clue that Holden is narrating the book from a psychiatric hospital in California: "I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy. ... D.B. [Holden's brother] comes over and visits ... practically every week end. He's going to drive me home when I go home next month maybe."

His story starts on Holden's last day at Pencey Prep. He is standing on the crest of a hill that overlooks the football field. It is the final game of the season, but Holden has never cared much for established tradition. He instead runs across the street to the residence of Mr. Spencer, his history teacher. It is revealed here that Holden has been expelled, and that he doesn't particularly care. Mr. Spencer is disappointed in Holden, and lectures to him about the importance of hard work and education. Holden becomes annoyed and lies about having to remove some equipment from the gym to get out of the discussion.

Back at the dorm, Holden talks to his roommate, Stradlater, a tall, good-looking ladies' man. Holden sees him very differently, describing him as a "secret slob" because he would shave and groom himself for women, but doesn't bother to clean the dirty, rusty razor he uses to do so. Stradlater returns home early from a date with Jane Gallagher, one of Holden's childhood friends with whom he has had a long-standing infatuation. During Stradlater's date, Holden had been told by Stradlater to write an essay for him on "a room or something", as the exact topic was never explicitly stated, but as long as it was descriptive Stradlater says. Holden finds inspiration in writing about his late brother Allie's baseball mitt. Allie was Holden's younger brother who died of leukemia and had written poetry in green ink on his mitt so that in the outfield he could have something to read. When Stradlater returns and finds what Holden has written about, he gets annoyed. Holden tears up the essay out of anger. A short while later, Holden inquires Stradlater what he did on his date. Stradlater refuses to answer his questions, but more specifically whether or not he had sex with Jane Gallagher. Holden becomes infuriated and tries to hit his unsuspecting roommate. Stradlater easily wins the fight, as Holden himself is not particularly strong, but also in part claims to be a pacifist.

His socially inept neighbor, Robert Ackley (called Ackley for short), is also introduced. Ackley's relationship with Holden is fairly complex: On one hand, Holden expresses disgust at his hygiene, acne, and personality, yet spends time with him of his own free will; he is drawn to Ackley because there is nobody else, going to movies and having snowball fights with him even though he comments on how abrasive Ackley is.

That night, considering everything, especially the fact that he will be leaving Pencey very soon anyway, Holden packs a suitcase and leaves Pencey before the actual last day of school, and decides to stay in New York for the remainder of the period. En route, Holden meets the mother of one of his schoolmates, Ernest Morrow. This schoolmate is an antisocial bully, but Holden decides to lie to the mother because she was seemingly very attractive despite her age. He tells her that her son is a terrific young man and very friendly, and that when other students wanted to nominate him for class president, he humbly refused the honor. Holden tells Mrs. Morrow that his name is Rudolf Schmidt, who in reality is the dorm janitor. She is also the first person Holden asks out for a drink since his exodus from Pencey. However, like most of his encounters, she declines the offer.

Arriving at New York, Holden checks into the Edmont Hotel where he becomes increasingly disappointed by his surroundings, "screwballs all over the place." Having nothing much to do, he calls up a girl, Faith Cavendish, whom he was totally unaquainted with (a friend of a friend), to meet her for a drink, despite it being very late. She also says no. Unable to get comfortable, Holden goes down to the lobby downstairs in the Lavender Room to relax, trying his best to fit in with most of the older people. He makes a move on the young women sitting in the table nearest him, but they only laugh at him. Eventually they give in and Holden dances with each one of them. He enjoys the night but notes many times to himself they have almost nothing in common, thus plugging any opportunity to further a relationship.

Holden continues to wander New York City encountering more people in the midst, each escapade leaving him somewhat more depressed than before. Many times in between chapters, he remembers nostalgically of him and Jane doing various things to keep himself calm. As he becomes increasingly lonely and depressed, he takes another cab to a different bar, Ernies, to get drunk. Typically he derides this one too saying there were too many phonies in there. He is forced to leave when he accidentally runs into his brother's annoying ex-girlfriend.

Back at the hotel, Holden encounters the elevator boy, Maurice, who offers to send up a prostitute to his room for five bucks. In a rather rash decision, he accepts the offer hoping the experience will cheer him up. But when the the young girl, Sunny, comes to his room, Holden cannot bring himself to have sex with her, feeling much too depressed. He tells Sunny he is recuperating from a surgical operation on his clavichord, an obvious play on clavicle and spinal cord, and pays her, instead, to sit down and keep him company for a while. Later, she leaves, only to return with Maurice shortly after, who intimidates Holden and uses brute force to hustle an extra five bucks from him.

The next day, he makes a date with one of his previous girlfriends, Sally Hayes. They attend a matinee performance of The Lunts and later go ice skating at Rockefeller Center, but retire indoors to talk once their ankles tire. Their conversation soon turns into a fight and the experience leaves him more depressed, as he realizes that they do not have much in common. Holden in a final attempt to make peace with Sally gets a sudden idea to leave and go Northeast, live off of the land and build a cabin, offering Sally a chance to go with him — get "married or something". Sally rejects him and his idea, especially after Holden plaintively blurts out that she's "a royal pain in the ass." At that point, Sally becomes offended and walks out on the date.

After he gets drunk at a bar and almost drowns looking for ducks in a pond in Central Park, Holden then decides to surreptitiously visit home to see his younger sister Phoebe. During a short conversation with Phoebe, Holden reveals the meaning of the novel's title. The idea is based on a misreading of a line in the song "Comin' Thro' the Rye," by Robert Burns, which Holden heard a young boy singing. The young boy mistakenly substituted "When a body catch a body, comin' thro' the rye" for "When a body meet a body, comin' thro' the rye." Holden interpreted the line literally, imagining a field of rye at the edge of a cliff, in which children constantly wandered, and that someone had the job of catching any who might fall. Thus, he says that he wants to be the catcher, because it serves a real purpose in a world that is otherwise so often phony/trivial. Holden quickly leaves the apartment as his parents come home from a party.

Holden goes to a former teacher's house, Mr Antolini, where his teacher gives him a speech about life and how, in order to live happily, Holden has to be prepared. Holden views Mr. Antolini as a father-figure and holds much respect for him. Mr. Antolini speaks as if he has been in Holden's situation before, hopelessly hating every person he ever sees. After preparing the pull out couch with Mr. Antolini, Holden awakes to find him stroking his head. Holden, taken aback by this, interprets this as a sexual advance, and runs out of the apartment to sleep in Grand Central Station, against the wishes of Mr. Antolini who says he was just admiring him.

In the morning, he decides to hitchhike west and build a cabin for himself away from the people he knows. However, he can't leave without saying goodbye to Phoebe first. Holden gives someone at her school a message to give to Phoebe explaining the situation. He tells her to meet him outside the nearby museum at lunchtime so he can give her back her money she had lent to him. At the same time, Holden witnesses several "Fuck You" messages graffitied on the walls, and worries what effect it would have if the children were to see it.

When Phoebe finally arrives at lunchtime, she is carrying one of Holden's old suitcases full of clothes. Phoebe tells Holden that she is going with him. He angrily refuses, feeling that he has influenced her to want to go with him instead of staying in school. She cries and refuses to speak to him. Knowing that she will follow him, Holden walks to the zoo, letting her anger lift. After walking through the zoo, with a short distance between them, they visit a park across the street. Phoebe starts talking to Holden again, and Holden promises to forget about his plan to run away and return home on Wednesday. He buys her a ticket for the carousel in the park and watches her ride an old horse on it. As Holden watches her ride the carousel, his own mood lifts. Soon he is nearly moved to tears with remorse, longing, and bittersweet happiness.

At this point in the book, the reader is given more clues that Holden is narrating the book from a mental hospital. He explains that he will be going to another school in the fall again but doesn't know for sure if he will start applying himself. He finishes talking with the words, "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody".