Catcher In The Rye Timeline

The Catcher in the Rye is set around the 1950s and is narrated by a teenager named Holden Caulfield. Holden tells the whole story to therapist. The story take place over 3 days.

The story begins at pence prep school in Pennsylvania. This is Holden’s forth school, He had to leave the other 3 schools. At Pence, he has failed all of his classes but English. He then received a notice that he is being expelled, but he is not scheduled to return home until Wednesday. He visits his elderly history teacher, Spencer, to say goodbye, but spencer reminds him of his poor work ethic, and Holden gets annoyed.

Back in the dormitory, Holden gets irritated be his nabore Ackley and his ow roommate stratlater. Stradlater spends his evening on a date with a

Again, he brings up the ducks in Central Park go in the winter to his ca driver, the driver thinks he is insane but the question of the duck make him think deeply. He runs into Lillian Simmons, one of his older brother’s former girlfriends, who invites him to sit with her and her date. Holden says he has to meet someone, leaves, and walks back to the Edmond.

At demon, Holden meets Maurice, the elevator operator. He offers to send a prostitute to Holden’s room for five dollars, and Holden agrees. A young woman arrives at his door. She identifies herself as “sunny”. Holden doesn’t want to do anything intimate but he just wants her company. He claims that he recently underwent a spinal operation and isn’t sufficiently recovered to have sex with her, but he offers to pay her anyway. He pays her 5 dollars and showing her the door. Sunny returns with Maurice, who demands another five dollars from Holden. When Holden refuses to pay, Maurice punches him in the stomach and leaves him on the floor, while Sunny takes five dollars from his wallet. Holden goes to

Then he goes to the lagoon in Central Park, where he used to watch the ducks as a child. He then decides to sneak into his own apartment building and wake his sister, Phoebe. He is forced to admit to Phoebe that he was kicked out of school. When he tries to explain why he hates school, she accuses him of not liking anything. He tells her his fantasy of being “the catcher in the rye,” a person who catches little children as they are about to fall off of a cliff. Phoebe tells him that he has misremembered the poem that he took the image from: Robert Burns’ poem says “if a body meet a body, coming through the rye,” not “catch a body.”

Holden calls his former English teacher, Mr. Antolini, who tells Holden he can come to his apartment.. Mr. Antolini offers holden to sleep over and puts him to bed on the couch. Holden awakens to find Mr. Antolini stroking his head. Thinking that Mr. Antolini is making a homosexual overture, Holden hastily excuses himself and leaves, sleeping for a few hours on a bench at Grand Central