Summary: Chapter 21
Holden takes the elevator up to his family’s apartment.
Luckily for him, the regular elevator operator is gone, and he is
able to convince the new one, who doesn’t recognize him, that he
wants to visit the Dicksteins, who live across the hall from the
Caulfields.
Holden sneaks into his family’s apartment and
looks for Phoebe, but she isn’t in her room. Holden tiptoes to D.
B.’s room, because Phoebe likes to sleep there when D. B. is in
Hollywood. He finds Phoebe sleeping peacefully, and he remarks that
children, unlike adults, always look peaceful when they are asleep. As
he watches Phoebe sleep, he reads through her schoolbooks. She has
signed her name “Phoebe Weatherfield Caulfield,” even though her
middle name is Josephine. He enjoys reading the notes to friends,
the curious questions, and the random imaginative jottings she has
scribbled on the pages.
He finally wakes Phoebe, and she is overjoyed to see him.
Bursting with energy, she talks feverishly about one thing after
another: her school play (in which she plays Benedict Arnold), a
movie she has just seen, a movie D. B. is working on, a boy at school
who bullies her, and the fact that their parents are at a party
and won’t come home until later. But after her enthusiastic flurry
of conversation, she realizes that Holden is home two days early
and must have been kicked out of school. Over and over, she repeats
that their father will “kill” him. Holden tries to justify his behavior,
but she refuses to listen and covers her head with a pillow. Holden
leaves the room to get some cigarettes.
Summary: Chapter 22
Holden returns to Phoebe’s room and eventually gets her
to listen. He tries to explain why he fails his classes and tells
her all the things he hates about school. She responds by accusing
him of hating everything. He tries to refute her claim, and she
challenges him to name one thing he likes. He becomes preoccupied,
thinking about the nuns he met at breakfast. He also thinks about
James Castle, a boy he knew at Elkton Hills School who jumped out
of a window to his death while being tormented by other boys.
He finally tells her that he likes Allie, and
she reminds him angrily that Allie is dead. She asks what he wants
to do with his life, and his only answer is to mention the lyric,
“If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye.” Holden says that
he imagines a gigantic field of rye on a cliff full of children
playing. He wants to stand at the edge of the cliff and catch the
children when they come too close to falling off—to be “the catcher
in the rye.” Phoebe points out that Holden has misheard the words—the actual
lyric, from the Robert Burns poem, “Coming Thro’ the Rye,” is “If
a body meet a body coming through the rye.”
Summary: Chapter 23
Holden leaves Phoebe’s room for a moment to
call Mr. Antolini, an English teacher he had at Elkton Hills. Mr.
Antolini is shocked that Holden has been kicked out of another school
and invites Holden to stay the night at his house. Holden mentions
to us that Mr. Antolini was the only teacher who approached James
Castle’s body after his death, the only one who demonstrated any courage
or kindness in the situation. Holden goes back into Phoebe’s room
and asks her to dance. After a few numbers, they hear the front
door open—their parents have come home from their dinner party.
Holden tries to fan away his lingering cigarette smoke and jumps
in the closet. His mother comes in to tuck Phoebe in, and he hides
until she leaves. He then tells Phoebe goodbye, letting her know
of his plan to leave New York and move out west alone. She loans
him the Christmas money she’d been saving, and he leaves for Mr.
Antolini’s. On the way out, he gives Phoebe his red hunting hat.
