The Catcher in the Rye
Timeline Project
By: Sanam Monjazeb, Jenny
Boranian, Christian Gao,
Brendan Weissberg
3:30 pm
The sick Mr. Spencer says
goodbye to Holden and
attempts to lecture him.
“I’m pretty sure he yelled
‘Good luck!’ at me. I hope
not. I hope to hell not. I’d
never yell ‘Good luck!’ at
anybody. It sounds
terrible, when you think
about it” (Salinger 16).
-Holden
3:00 pm
4:30 pm
Holden watches the end of
the football game against
Saxon Hall on the top of
Thomsen Hill.
Holden is back at the dorms with
Ackley.
“It was the last game of the
year, and you were
supposed to commit
suicide or something if old
Pencey didn’t win”
(Salinger 2).
“He started cleaning his goddam
finger nails with the end of a match.
He was always cleaning his
fingernails. It was funny, in a way.
His teeth were always mossy-looking,
and his ears were always dirty as hell,
but he was always cleaning his
fingernails” (Salinger 22).
- Holden
-Holden
7:30 pm
Holden, Ackley, and Brossard go to
Agerstown for burgers and a movie, but
skip the movie.
“I yelled over and asked old Ackley if he
wanted to go to the movies…[he] asked
who was going besides me…I swear, if
that guy was shipwrecked, and you
rescued him in a goddam boat, he’d
want to know who the guy was that was
rowing it before he’d even get in”
(Salinger 36).
- Holden
5:00 pm
Stradlater returns from the football
game and gets ready for his date
with Jane. He asks Holden to write
his composition for him.
8:45 pm
The three of them return to the dorms, and
Ackley lingers for a while. When he finally
leaves, Holden writes Stradlater’s
composition.
“That sonuvabitch Hartzell thinks
you’re a hot-shot in English, and he
knows you’re my roommate. So I
mean don’t stick all the commas
and stuff in the right place”
(Salinger 28).
“The thing that was descriptive about it,
though, was that he had poems written all
over the fingers and the pocket and
everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them
on it so that he’d have something to read
when he was in the field and nobody was
up to bat. He’s dead now” (Salinger 38).
- Stradlater
- Holden
11:45 pm
Holden leaves Pencey Prep.
“I stood for a while next to the stairs
and took a last look down the goddam
corridor. I was sort of crying. I don’t
know why. I put my red hunting hat
on, and turned the peak around to the
back, the way I liked it, and then I
yelled at the top of my voice, ‘Sleep
tight, ya morons!’” (Salinger 52).
- Holden
10:45 pm
Stradlater returned from his date. He and
Holden got in a fight fueled by Holden’s
rage at the way Stradlater treats women.
“I told him he thought he could give the
time to anybody he felt like. I told him he
didn’t even care if a girl kept all of her
kings in the back row or not, and the
reason why he didn’t care was because he
was a goddam stupid moron…” (Salinger
44).
- Holden
1:00 am
Holden walks to a train station to go to
New York City. At a stop at Trenton, a
woman boards the train. She notices
Holden’s Pencey Prep sticker, and asks
him if he knows Ernie Morrow, her son.
“She had a nice voice. A nice telephone
voice, mostly. She should’ve carried a
goddam telephone around with her”
(Salinger 54).
- Holden
4:00 am
Lavender Room (nightclub at Edmont
Hotel):
Holden tries to order alcohol. He
begins to make small talk and dances
with three women from Seattle.
“They probably thought I was too
young to give anybody the once-over.
That annoyed hell out of me – you’d’ve
thought I wanted to marry them or
something” (Salinger 70).
- Holden
3:00 am
Holden arrives at the Penn Station.
He keeps wanting to call someone,
but then decides not to. He takes a
cab to Edmont Hotel.
“Then I thought about calling up
this guy that went to the Whooton
School when I was there, Carl Luce,
but I didn’t like him much”
(Salinger 59).
- Holden
5:00 am
Holden begins to recollect about Jane
Gallagher. Their summer homes in
Maine were next door, and they met
when his mother went to talk to them
about their Doberman defecating on
their lawn.
“When she was talking she got excited
about something, her mouth sort of went
in fifty directions, her lips and all. That
killed me. And she never really closed it
all the way, her mouth” (Salinger 77).
- Holden
7:00 am
Edmont Hotel:
Holden goes back to his room at the
Edmont Hotel and hires a prostitute
named Sunny for “a throw.” After
Sunny takes her dress off, Holden
suddenly gets depressed and changes
his mind. Holden pays her $5, which
she complains about, then leaves.
“I took her dress over to the closet and
hung it up for her. It was funny. It
made me feel sort of sad when I hung it
up” (Salinger 96).
- Holden
6:00 am
Holden takes a cab to a Greenwich
Village nightclub called Ernie’s. He
listens to Ernie play piano, drinks
scotch and soda, and sees Lillian
Simmons, D.B.’s old girlfriend. He
leaves to get away from her.
“Well, you little so-and-so. All right
for you. Tell your brother I hate
him, when you see him” (Salinger
87).
- Lillian Simmons
8:00 am
Edmont Hotel:
Maurice comes barging into the
hotel room and tells Holden that
he owes them $10 instead of $5.
She and Sunny gang up on him
and steal the money out of his
wallet.
“It’s 10 bucks, chief. I tole ya
that. Ten bucks for a throw,
fifteen bucks til noon. I tole ya
that” (Salinger 101).
- Maurice
12:00 pm
Holden goes to a record store on
Broadway to try to find a record for his
sister Phoebe called “Little Shirley
Beans.” He talks about how he always
wanted to buy it for her because he
knew it would knock her out.
“A boy that lived on the next floor had
it, and I tried to buy it off him because
I knew it would knock old Phoebe out,
but he wouldn’t sell it” (Salinger 114).
- Holden
10:00 am
Sandwich Bar:
While getting breakfast, Holden talks to
two nuns about where they’re from and
what they’re doing in New York. They
end up getting into a conversation about
Romeo and Juliet and Holden donates
$10 to their charity.
“…it was sort of embarrassing, in a way,
to be talking about Romeo and Juliet
with her. I mean that play gets pretty
sexy in some parts, and she was a nun
and all…” (Salinger 111).
- Holden
2:00 pm
Sally and Holden go out on their date; they
go to the Lunts’ show. Afterward, they go to
Radio City and go ice-skating. After skating,
they went into a bar and had a drink and
Holden came up with this idea that they
would run off together to Vermont and get
married and have kids.
“…In the first place we’re both practically
children. And did you ever stop to think
what you’d do if you didn’t get a job….We’d
starve to death” (Salinger 132).
- Sally Hayes
11:30 pm
Holden sits at the bar after Luce leaves;
he is lonesome. He pretends that he
has a bullet in his gut and it makes him
feel a little better. Holden calls Sally in
his drunkenness and tells her that he is
going to trim a tree with her.
“Trimma goddam tree for ya. Okay?”
(Salinger 151).
- Holden
10:00 pm
The Wicker Bar:
Holden meets Carl Luce at the Wicker
Bar. They talk about his personal life and
about some new girl that he’s dating.
Holden keeps questioning Luce about his
sex life, and Luce gets irritated with
Holden’s immaturity. After a while Luce
looks at his watch and says he has to
leave.
“Listen. Let’s get one thing straight. I
refuse to answer any typical Caulfield
questions tonight. When in hell are you
going to grow up?” (Salinger 146).
- Carl Luce
1:00 am
Holden goes home to visit Phoebe and
tricks the elevator monitor to take
him to his floor.
Holden sneaks past the room and
finds Phoebe in his big brother’s
room. He looks at her writings. She
wakes up and they talk; she finds out
he got “the axe.”
“Daddy’ll kill you!” (Salinger 165).
- Phoebe
2:00 am
Holden talks about James Castle falling to his
death and how Mr. Antolini picked him up
first. Holden dances with Phoebe. Holden’s
mom comes home and Holden swats the air to
get rid of the smoke. Holden’s mom leaves
and Phoebe gives Holden some “dough.”
“In between numbers she's funny as hell. She
stays right in position. She won't even talk or
anything. You have to stay in position and
wait for the orchestra to start playing again"
(Salinger 175).
- Holden
1:30 am
Holden admits he got expelled to
Phoebe. He tries to explain why he
did not like the school. Phoebe
argues with Holden and tries to
convince him that he should have
studied harder. Holden calls Mr.
Antolini.
“If a body catch a body comin’
through the rye” (Salinger 173).
- Holden
1:00 am
Holden goes over to Mr. Antolini’s house.
They talk over smokes and alcohol. Mr.
Antolini talks about life and Holden’s
education. Holden goes to sleep, but awakes
to find that Mr. Antolini is patting his head.
Holden is frightened that he is trying to
make a move on him, and leaves. He sleeps
at Grand Central Station.
“The mark of an immature man, is that he
wants to die nobly for a cause” (Salinger
188).
- Mr. Antolini
Back to Holden’s Present Time
In rest home, Holden says he will be
enrolling in school again in the fall. He
misses people he met during his
adventures and his roommates. Holden
says he gets questioned about his
education by a psychoanalyst.
“Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you
do, you start missing everybody" (Salinger
214).
- Holden
8:00 am
Holden wakes up and is crowded with people at
the Grand Central. He wants to notify Phoebe that
he is leaving. He writes her a note to meet him at
the museum. Phoebe comes with her bags packed,
hoping to leave with Holden. He says no and she
gets mad; later he takes her to the park where she
rides the carousel. Holden feels very happy.
"I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if
you want to know the truth. It was just that she
looked so damn nice, the way she kept going
around and around, in her blue coat and all. God, I
wish you could've been there" (Salinger 213).
- Holden
Bibliography
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Salinger, J.D.. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little,
Brown and Company, 1951.
Google Images. 27 Jan 2009
<http://images.google.com/>.
Sutton, Bettye. "Assignment Guide for J.D. Salinger's
Catcher in the Rye (1951)." Catcher in the Rye. May
2008. Lone Star College-Kingwood Library. 27 Jan
2009 <http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/catcher.htm>.