The Catcher in the Rye Ch. 7-13 By Vanessa Charest

About the Author: J.D. Salinger Born January 1st 1919 in New York, New York. The youngest of two children born to Sol Salinger and Miriam. After flunking out of the McBurney School in New York, he was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania. 1939, he took night classes at Columbia University. Met Professor Whit Burnett who urged Salinger to write more often and published his short stories in Story magazine. 1942-1944, Salinger was drafted into US military during WWII. Fought at Utah Beach on D-Day, in the Battle of the Bulge, and the Battle of Hürtgen Forest. During this time, he continued writing about Holden Caulfield. 1951, Salinger published The Catcher in the Rye. To date it has sold more than 65 million copies. 2010, died of natural causes at age 91.

Ch. 7-8 Ch 7: After his scuff with Stradlater, Holden talks with Ackley. He eventually decides to leave Pency and head to New York before Wednesday, where he will wait out for a few days until his parents have “thoroughly digested” the news of his expulsion before visiting their apartment (51). Ch 8: Holden boards a late train to New York. At Trenton, he encounters the mother of his old classmate Ernest Morrow. Holden tells Mrs. Morrow his name is Rudolph Schmidt and lies to her about the popularity of her son. He also claims that he was heading to New York to have a brain tumor operation.

Ch. 9-10 Ch 9: Holden considers calling someone: his brother D.B, his little sister Phoebe, Jane Gallagher, Sally Hayes, but decides against it. He checks into the Edmont Hotel which he claims was filled with “perverts and morons”, and calls Faith Cavendish, a girl mentioned to him by a Princeton boy, to set up a date but ultimately backs out. Ch 10: Holden again considers calling Phoebe but backs out and visits the hotel’s night club, the Lavender Room. In the Lavender Room, Holden flirts with three women from Seattle, whom he describes as “three real morons” (70). He dances with all of them but lies to them about having seen a movie star in the night club.

Ch. 11, 12, 13 Ch 11: Holden heads back into the lobby and considers Jane Gallagher. He describes how they were neighbors at their summer homes in Maine and that he taught her to golf. Still emotionally troubled about Stradlater’s interactions with Jane, Holden contemplates his close relationship with her. Ch 12: Holden takes a cab to Ernie’s, a night club he and his brother D.B. used to frequent. He takes a seat but encounters Lillian Simmons and is driven out by her obnoxious personality. Ch 13: Holden walks back to the hotel and is convinced by the elevator operator to order a prostitute. When the prostitute named Sunny arrives, Holden begins to feel depressed and asks if they could talk. He claims that he was recuperating from an operation to his “clavichord” to avoid having sex before finally paying her.

Analysis of Ch. 7-13 Isolation: Throughout ch 7-13, we witness Holden’s attempts to make meaningful human contact fail as he constantly finds excuses to alienate himself. In ch 9, Holden seems desperate to call someone but comes up with reasons to not call anybody he had in mind. But his desire for human interaction is apparent when he tries to make conversation with the cab driver who brushes him off. Furthermore, at the hotel, Holden seeks out company from Faith Cavendisha, girl he never met before, over the phone but ends up declining her invitation to meet the next day. It seems at every opportunity for human connection, Holden ends up sabotaging himself at every turn and folding back into the comfort of his own isolation. This fear of meaningful connections could possibly stem from the trauma he experienced from the loss of his brother Allie, whom he shared a close connection with and lost abruptly.

Analysis of Ch. 7-13 Lying: Holden constantly criticizes those around him for their “phoniness” and lack of genuine character. For instance, in the hotel he witness various bizarre behaviors from the “perverts” in the other rooms, and is troubled by their “crumby” nature. He also considers Ernie, the piano player from the nightclub, a “phony” and “the kind of guy that won’t talk to you unless you’re a big shot” (80). However, Holden himself is a frequent liar, having deceived others about his identity (Mrs. Morrow, the three Seattle ladies) or else lying to escape situations involving human contact (Lillian Simmons, the prostitute Sunny). In this way, Holden by his deception is a “phony”, a person who is nongenuine with others. But Holden may be cloaking himself in lies in order to distance himself from others and retreat further into his isolation. This deception is furthermore another symptom of Holden’s troubled psychological state stemming from the loss of his brother.