The Catcher in the Rye

1. The Catcher in the Rye Chapters 4-6

2. Journal (10 lines)No homework check today “Be a buddyroo” and write a composition for Stradlater. It can be on “Anything. Anything descriptive. A room. Or a house. Or something you once lived in or something – you know. Just as long as it’s descriptive as hell…Just don’t do it too good, is all….So I mean don’t stick all the commas and stuff in the right place.”

3. Pages 31-32 “I used to play checkers with her all the time.” “You used to play what with her all the time?” “Checkers.” “Checkers, for Chrissake!” “Yeah. She wouldn’t move any of her kings. What she’d do, when she’d get a king, she wouldn’t move it. She’d just leave it in the back row. She’d get them all lined up in the back row. Then she’d never use them. She just liked the way they looked when they were all in the back row.”

4. Page 34 “I kept thinking about Jane, and about Stradlater having a date with her and all. It made me so nervous I nearly went crazy. I already told you what a sexy bastard Stradlater was.”

5. Page 36 “…I went over to my window and opened it and packed a snowball with my bare hands. The snow was very good for packing. I didn’t throw it at anything, though. I started to throw it. At a car that was parked across the street. But I changed my mind. The car looked so nice and white. Then I started to throw it at a hydrant, but that looked too nice and white, too.”

6. Page 38 – Allie “He was also the nicest, in lots of ways. He never got mad at anybody. People with redhair are supposed to get mad very easily, but Allie never did, and he had very red hair.” Who is Allie and what do we learn about him? Why is this important to Holden’s development? What is significant about the color red?

7. Page 39 “I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage. I don’t blame them. I really don’t. I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it. I even tried to break all the windows on the station wagon we had that summer, but my hand was already broken and everything by that time, and I couldn’t do it.”

8. Page 43 “This next part I don’t remember so hot. All I know is I got up from the bed, like I was going down to the can or something, and then I tried to sock him, with all my might, right smack in the toothbrush, so it would split his goddam throat open. Only, I missed. I didn’t connect.”