Catcher in the Rye

Catcher in the Rye, a novel by J.D. Salinger, is the story of Holden Caulfield, a cynical sixteen-year-old with prematurely gray hair that appears older than his age. Holden is caught at the awkward age between adolescence and adulthood. Set in the 1950s, the story begins with Holden recovering from a breakdown stemming from his expulsion from Pencey Prep School. Holden has already flunked out of three other schools. This man/child is torn between his desire to take on the trappings of adulthood and his desire to preserves the innocence of childhood. The title is a reference to the way Holden sees the world and his desire to preserve its purity.

The scene in which the author reveals the source of the book's title takes place in Chapter 22. Holden has left school and snuck back into his parents Manhattan apartment. He is speaking with his ten-year-old sister Phoebe in his older brother's bedroom. Phoebe is six years Holden's junior, yet in many aspects has a superior understanding of him and the ways of the world. She is distraught that Holden has been expelled from another school, "Daddy's going to kill you. He's going to kill you" (p. 224).

As way of explanation for his latest failure Holden tells his sister, "It was one of the worst schools I ever went to. It was full of phonies (p. 217). He talks about his fellow students, the faculty, and the alumni, "God Phoebe! I can't explain. I just didn't like anything that was happening at Pencey. I can't explain" (p. 219).

Phoebe responds, "You don't like anything that's happening" and challenges him to "Name one thing" (p.220). Holden eventually names his dead brother Allie, and then that he likes where he is right at that moment. Phoebe then asks him to "Name something you'd like to be" (p. 223). And Holden responds,

"Anyway, I keep picturing all these kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around- nobody big, I mean-except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go off the cliff- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy" (224-225).

Earlier in the novel Holden had seen a boy walking in the street, close to the curb with his mother and father in New York City. The parents were engrossed in a conversation, "not paying any attention to their kid." The boy was singing "If a body catch a body coming through the rye." The cars zoomed by, "brakes screeched all over the place...and he kept on singing…it made me feel good" (p. 150).