The Catcher In The Rye Review

  “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D.Salinger is a novel about a boy, Holden Caulfield who is 16 years old and has narrated two days of his life which are of great significance to him. He has not been a competent student and calls himself dumb every time and therefore is expelled from several schools ,the former has been Pencey Prep School. The school has expelled him and before leaving he has met his history teacher Spencer and then his roommate, Ward Stradlater who has asked Holden to write an essay about his date with Jane Gallagher, whom Holden also admires, and this made him infuriated as well as agitated. He decides to leave Pencey and move to Manhattan without telling his parents and stays in the Edmont hotel in New York. At that hotel he has undergone several experiences of elders having sexual relationships by gazing through their windows. He goes to the hotel's night club, Lavender Room, and dances with the blond-haired woman, then goes to other clubs and faces people who are not of his interests and bores him. When he arrives back at Edmont, he comes across an elevator operator who offers to send a prostitute to him. The very moment the prostitute named Sunny arrives at his room and pulls off her clothes in order to have a sex but Holden refuses again saying that he has a spinal injury but she sits near him but he hesitates, pays the money but she leaves in anger. Then he sleeps and wakes up the next day ,Sunday , calls Sally, an attractive girl whom he has dated in the past and planned a meeting. Then he meets with her and then he goes to see his sister Phoebe. So the plot keeps on advancing and in the end Holden changes to an optimistic and self- aware person.

Author: Faryal Karim