Chapter Ten
• Phoebe Caulfield = Holden’s 10-year-old sister
• Personality:
• “Somebody with sense”; perceptive and
intelligent
• Sometimes “too affectionate” and overemotional
• Physical: Red hair like Allie did; “Rollerskate
skinny”
• Writes books but never finishes them
• Follows in Holden’s footsteps
Chapter Ten
• Lavender Room = nightclub on the first floor of the
Edmont Hotel
• Holden is denied being served alcohol
• Holden, acting as “Jim Steele” tries to engage the
“three witches” in conversation and dancing
• He is annoyed by them to the point of
fascination/intrigue
• He picks up their tab despite secretly hating them
• He lives outside his true life by relentlessly lying:
• Fake name; celebrity sighting
Chapter Ten
• Although Holden claims to be
experiencing a rapid growth spurt and
growing gray hair (impending
adulthood)…
•Holden is denied being served alcohol
at the Lavender Room
•One of the girls who Holden is dancing
with (“Bernice something- Crabs or
Krebs”) at the Lavender Room questions
his age
Chapter Ten
• Reverie?
• Holden’s favorite person is a female, his sister
Phoebe
• Sexist/Chauvinistic?
• Holden refers to the “ugly” girls at the Lavender
room as “witches,” “grools,” and “dopes.”
• Falls in love too easily?
• Holden is impressed with girls’ “pretty” actions
and falls “half in love” with them
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
• Aside from jealous rage, Holden seems
agitated that a guy like Stradlater
would never really get to know Jane like
he does.
• “You don’t always have to get too sexy to
know a girl.” (76)
• Holden as caring; courteous; mindful;
respectful?
• Sentiment: “Nice guys always finish
last”
Chapter Eleven
• Holden’s family owns a summer
home next to Jane’s family, in
Maine.
• Jane’s dog was “relieving
himself” on his lawn
• Holden and Jane played games
(golf, checkers) together
Chapter Eleven
• Jane is Holden’s type:
• Not typically beautiful
• “muckle-mouthed”
• Literate/intelligent
• The only person Holden ever showed
Allie’s mitt to
• “Terrific to hold hands with”
• Quote 76-80
Chapter Eleven
• Jane’s step-father is a “booze
hound” who is seemingly abusive
• Jane, crying for an unknown
reason, is consoled by Holden
• Tear drop on the checkerboard
• Holden wishes to protect her
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
• Holden, like the very city
withholding him, is “lonesome and
depressed.”
• Hardly anybody seems to be out
on a Saturday night; NYC is
usually more vibrant
• Holden feels insignificant, as a
loner within a huge city
Chapter Twelve
• Holden’s conversation centers around
where the ducks of Central Park go
during the winter
• He is wondering where his life is
heading this winter
• Horowitz counters Holden’s question by
asking him what happens with the fish in
the lagoon.
Chapter Twelve
• Holden is seeking
companionship/friendship, even if
from the most unlikely person
• He is oddly intrigued by Horowitz
and believes he is genuine/honest
• “If you was a fish, Mother Nature’d
take care of you, wouldn’t she?”
(Horowitz, 83)
Chapter Twelve
• Ernie is full of himself; uses a mirror to
make sure the audience sees his face
when he plays
• Gives very phony, show-off bows when
he is done playing
• His audience, believing him to be so
good at what he does, makes him out
to be better than he is
• Quote: 83-84
Chapter Twelve
He is “surrounded by jerks” having awful
conversations, refusing to move to let
people by
• One guy is telling his uninterested date
about sports, but she was too “funny
looking” to stop him
• Another “Joe Yale looking” guy is giving a
girl a feel under the table while telling her
about a near-suicide at his dorm
Chapter Twelve
• DB’s ex-girlfriend who had “very
big knockers,” is on a date with
“some Navy officer…that looked
like he had a poker up his ass.”
• She treats Holden like a best friend,
but Holden knows she just wants to
ask questions about DB
Chapter Twelve
• Holden leaves in order to escape
having to hang out with Lillian and
“Commander Blop”
• Lies his way out of conversation and
so has to leave
• “I couldn’t even stick around to hear Old
Ernie play something halfway decent… It
made me mad… people are always
ruining things for you.” (87)
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
• While walking back to his hotel from
Ernie’s Holden comments on his pacifism
and cowardice
• His memory involves the hypothetical
situation of what he would do if he
found out who stole his gloves at
Pencey Prep
• He would confront the person but not
do anything about it
Chapter Thirteen
Discuss!
• “It’s no fun to be yellow. Maybe I’m not all
yellow…I’m just partly yellow and partly
the type that doesn’t give a damn if they
lose their gloves… What you should be is
not yellow at all. If you’re supposed to sock
somebody in the jaw, and you sort of feel
like doing it, you should do it. I’m just no
good at it, though.” (89)
Chapter Thirteen
• “I can’t stand looking at the guy’s
face, is my trouble.”
• Holden cannot accept the
aftermath/consequence of
violence, but understands the
necessity of violence
• “It’s a funny kind of yellowness… but it’s
yellowness, all right.” (90)
Chapter Thirteen
• Holden, out of courtesy, does not want to
do something that a girl will regret or
blame him for later
• “The trouble with me is, I stop. Most guys
don’t. I can’t help it. You never know
whether they really want you to stop, or
whether they’re just scared as hell, or
whether they’re just telling you to stop so
that if you do go through with it, the
blame’ll be on you, not them.” (92)
Chapter Thirteen
• Holden is feeling increasingly
lonesome and depressed; he has
suicidal thoughts
• “I wasn’t sleepy or anything, but I
was feeling sort of lousy.
Depressed and all. I almost
wished I was dead.” (90)
Chapter Thirteen
• Holden meets Maurice, the
elevator operator at his hotel, who
doubles as a pimp
• Holden agrees to have a
prostitute, “a little tail,” sent to his
room
• Discuss: Why did Holden agree to do
this despite knowing it was a bad
idea?
Chapter Thirteen
• Holden admits to his virginity
• He’s had opportunities but has never
seized them
• He is confused as to what to do
when a girl says, “Stop.”
• Girls “lose their brains” in the heat
of the moment; Holden feels bad for
them
Chapter Thirteen
• Holden is taken back by how young and nervous
she seems
• She abruptly removes her dress; Holden hangs it
up in the closet and feels sad thinking of her
purchasing the dress with nobody in the store
knowing she was a prostitute
• Holden turns down her sexual advances as wishes
to talk instead
• Sunny calls Holden “crum-bum,” and Holden
refuses to thank her when she leaves
Chapter Thirteen
• Alias Jim Steele
• Sophisticated, mature, older identity for Holden
• Age 22
• Holden tried to match how old he thought she
might be
• Excuse to avoid Sunny’s sexual gestures
Holden is recovering from surgery on his
“clavichord”
• Clavichord: musical instrument!
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
• Holden recalls a time when he did
not let Allie tag along with him and
a friend of his, when they were
shooting BB guns
• Holden was protecting him by not
allowing him to come
• “Go and get your bike and meet me
in front of Bobby’s house…” (99)
Chapter Fourteen
• Holden talks out loud to Allie, as if
Allie is actually there.
• “I do that sometimes when I get
really depressed.” (98)
Is it “crazy” or “normal” to talk
out loud to our deceased loved
ones?
Chapter Fourteen
• Refer to Holden’s fantasy (#6)
Chapter Fourteen
• Holden claims to be “sort of an
Atheist”
• Atheism = belief that no God exists
• Holden dislikes Jesus’ Disciples but
appreciates the lunatic who lived in the
tombs and kept cutting himself with
stones
• Believes that “Holy Joe” ministers are
phony and only act religious
Chapter Fourteen
• Maurice comes to collect the money he
thinks Holden owes; Holden refuses to
give him the extra $5
• Holden calls Maurice a “dirty, chiseling
moron”
• Maurice physically threatens and later
punches Holden while Sunny takes $5
from his wallet
• Holden, supposedly “partly yellow,”
takes a stand and pays the price
Chapter Fourteen
• Holden imagines himself as a
Hollywood gangster enacting revenge
on Maurice by plugging him with “six
shots right through his fat hairy belly”
• He imagines Jane bandaging up his
guts, holding a cigarette to his mouth
• “The goddam movies. They can ruin you.”
(104)
Chapter Fourteen
• Holden appears increasingly suicidal,
but fears the events of his suicide and
hopes for the quick, painless resolution
of death
• “What I really felt like doing, though, was
committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the
window. I probably would’ve done it, too, if I’d
been sure somebody’d cover me up as soon as I
landed. I didn’t want a bunch of rubbernecks
looking at me when I was all gory.” (104)
Chapter Fourteen
• [Discuss: Answers may vary]
• Downward spiral = perpetual state
of depression which, as events
occur, makes one feel increasingly
isolated and hopeless