Chapters 1
through 8 take us from 's last day and night at Pencey Prep through the train ride that drops
him at Penn Station in the heart of Manhattan.
Key ideas in these chapters
include the fact that Holden does not fit into Penceyor any boarding school, for that matter, as
he has a history of being expelled. We also learn that he has been deeply shattered by the death
of his younger brother, , from leukemia. This has led him to such acts as breaking his hand
smashing all the windows in his family's garage. He is also deeply attached to his younger
sister, .
We learn, too, that for all his problems, Holden is a caring
person. In fact, this may be his biggest problem: he genuinely cares about people, especially
the vulnerable. He does his best, for example, to be kind to his elderly teacher, , even though
Mr. Spencer irritates him by lecturing him about his future and reading aloud to him from an
embarrassing note he wrote Mr. Spencer to try to spare his feelings.
Holden
feels particularly caring and worried about an old friend, , when he finds out his
smooth-talking, sexually promiscuous, and phony roommate, Stradlater, is taking her out on a
date. He continues to show a need to protect people when he meets the mother of a particularly
callous and obnoxious Pencey student on the train, telling her lies about her son to make her
feel good about him.
By the time the train arrives in New York City, we know
quite a bit about Holden: he is deeply troubled about the death of his brother; he is alienated
from his peers, most of whom he thinks of as phony; but at the same time, he is extremely
protective of the vulnerable. He has been expelled from school, his behavior is often erratic
and impulsive, and now he is let loose with lots of money from his grandmother for a spree in
Manhattan.
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