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Characters
Come here when you need to sort out who matters, what they want, and where they actually help your argument in The Catcher in the Rye.
Contents
Character map
The narrator and protagonist. A sixteen-year-old who has been expelled from multiple schools and is drifting toward a breakdown. He is funny, perceptive, and deeply sad. His voice drives the entire novel, but his judgment is not always trustworthy.
Holden's ten-year-old sister. She is sharp, loving, and one of the few people who can actually get through to him. She calls him out when he is being evasive and refuses to let him disappear. Her carousel scene with Holden is the emotional climax of the book.
Holden's younger brother, who died of leukemia before the novel begins. He never appears in the present action, but he is everywhere in Holden's mind. Holden describes him as the best person he ever knew, and Allie's death is the wound the whole novel circles around.
Holden's former English teacher, now a professor in New York. He offers Holden a place to stay and gives him the most direct, serious advice in the novel—warning him that he is heading for a terrible fall. Holden flees after waking to find Antolini touching his head, in a scene the novel leaves deliberately ambiguous.
A girl Holden knew at a summer house years ago. She never actually appears in the novel—Holden only thinks about calling her. She represents an ideal of innocence and genuine connection that Holden cannot bring himself to pursue, possibly because he fears she will disappoint him.
Holden's on-and-off girlfriend. Their date in New York ends badly when Holden suggests they run away together and she refuses. She is conventional and socially comfortable in ways Holden finds frustrating, and he insults her. She represents the kind of adulthood Holden most fears becoming.
Holden's roommate at Pencey Prep. Handsome, confident, and sexually successful in ways Holden is not. Holden's fight with Stradlater over Jane Gallagher is the trigger that sends him fleeing Pencey early. Stradlater represents the shallow, self-satisfied adulthood Holden dreads.
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Open it →How this guide is built
This guide is built from the original text to help you get oriented fast. It is designed for recall, paper planning, and getting unstuck, but it is still a paraphrased guide, not a substitute for the reading itself. Double-check anything important before you turn in formal work.
