J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, published in 1951, is widely heralded as one of the best novels of the 20th century. This coming-of-age novel captures the alienation that teenagers experienced in the years following World War II, and its popularity as an assigned text in US schools has led to its enduring relevance in American literature (and notoriety, as it frequently faced challenges or censorship from concerned parents).

Content Warning: This text discusses suicide and anti-gay prejudice, and it uses stigmatizing terms about mental illness, which are reproduced only in quotations.

Plot Summary

The novel is narrated from the subjective first-person perspective of Holden Caulfield, a teenager who recounts the novel’s events from an unspecified institution. Holden’s family has sent him there, though he soon goes to live with his brother, D. B., in Hollywood. Holden says he wants to tell the story of how he arrived in his present situation, which he does in a discursive, inward manner that focuses on his internal struggles with depression, particularly after the death of his brother Allie.

Holden’s story begins as he is expelled from his school, Pencey Preparatory Academy, after failing most of his classes; he has also caused the fencing team to forfeit their match after leaving the equipment on the subway in New York. He is due to go home for Christmas vacation in a few days, but after an eventful night punctuated by a depressing meeting with his teacher, Mr. Spencer, and a physical confrontation with his roommate, Ward Stradlater, over Stradlater going on a date with Holden’s old friend Jane Gallagher, he decides to take the money he has and head into New York City.

On his arrival in New York, Holden has a series of picaresque adventures over the next few days as he thinks about Jane Gallagher, his younger sister, Phoebe, and Allie. On his first night, he checks into a hotel, the Edmont, and dances in the lobby’s nightclub with three young tourists; from there, he heads to another club, where he runs into a woman who knows his brother, then he heads back to the Edmont in a funk. The elevator operator offers to send him a sex worker, which he agrees to. When the sex worker, Sunny, arrives, he no longer wants to go through with it, and even though he agrees to pay her anyway, she says he is cheating her out of $5, which leads to a confrontation with the elevator operator in which Holden is beaten up.

The next day, he makes a date with Sally Hayes, an old fling, and spends the morning in and around Central Park. He has breakfast at a lunch counter, where he talks to two nuns, and he buys a record for Phoebe that he has been wanting to get her; he accidentally breaks it before having the opportunity. Holden’s date with Sally goes poorly, as he becomes agitated while trying to convince her to run away with him, and she leaves. Holden goes to the movies alone, then he meets his old friend Carl Luce at a bar. Carl is annoyed by Holden, thinking he should grow up, and Holden is left alone at the bar, where he gets very drunk. Low on money and thoroughly depressed, Holden decides to sneak home and visit Phoebe.

He sneaks into his family’s apartment successfully; Phoebe is thrilled to see him, but she becomes upset when she realizes he’s been kicked out of school. Holden’s parents come home from a party, so he sneaks out and goes to see an old teacher, Mr. Antolini. Mr. Antolini offers him a place to stay and gives him an inspiring speech about Holden’s future, but Holden wakes to Antolini stroking his hair. Holden panics and leaves, ultimately spending the night in Grand Central Station.

In the morning, he leaves a note at Phoebe’s school saying that he’s leaving and they should meet at lunch. When they meet, she’s packed a suitcase to go with him and becomes angry again when he says she can’t come. They walk together to the zoo, and Holden buys Phoebe tickets to ride the carousel. Watching her ride the carousel as it starts pouring rain, he feels a moment of happiness, and his story ends there. Holden concludes his narrative on an uncertain note, admitting that he’s not sure he will be any different when he leaves the institution.