Getting Things Straight: The Catcher in the Rye - Chapters 1-5
Literary Definitions
· stream of consciousness—flow of thoughts and images which may not always appear to
have a clear point or be organized
· colloquialism—ordinary or familiar conversation rather than formal speech or writing
· frame story—a story within a story
Essential Questions – Journal Topics – Choose 1
· Is it inevitable (unavoidable) that we conform to the world and society around us?
· What does it mean to stay true to yourself?
· Is it possible to grow up without becoming phony?
Chapter 1
1. Holden says that his brother, D.B., is “out in Hollywood, being a prostitute” (2). Based on this comment, what can you infer about Holden’s value system?
2. By learning where Holden is as the story begins, a frame story is established. Identify the inner and out frames.
3. What is Pencey Prep, and why does Holden dislike it? (2)
4. Holden explains why he is kicked out of Pencey Prep. (4) Based on this information, what character trait(s) is/are revealed about Holden? Be specific.
5. Since the story is clearly told from Holden’s point of view, 1st person, what do you predict to be the underlying mood of the entire novel?
Chapter 2
- Holden clearly dislikes old age. Explain how Mrs. and Mr. Spencer justify Holden’s fears.
- What can you infer about Holden’s character through his note to Mr. Spencer?
- Characterize Holden based on the reason he gives for “leaving” Elkton Hills? (13)
- What is he wondering about in terms of the ducks? (13)
Chapter 3
- What type of hat does Holden wear?
- Who is Robert Ackley? (19) Why do you think Ackley is an outcast?
Chapter 4
1. Why is Stradlater popular while Ackley is unpopular? What does this suggest about society’s values?
2. Who is Stradlater’s date for the evening? How does Holden know her?
3. Describe Jane Gallagher’s home life.
Chapter 5
1. Who is Allie, and why is his baseball mitt so special to Holden? (38)
2. Why did Holden's parents want to have him psychoanalyzed? (39)
In your journal, interpret the following quote, and connect it to a movie, television show, song, work of literature, or personal experience.
“Depression is nourished by a lifetime of un-grievedand un-forgiven hurts." Penelope Sweet
Getting Things Straight: The Catcher in the Rye - Chapters 6-11
Literary Definitions
hyperbole—conscious exaggeration
symbol—something that is itself but also stands for something else
motif—an image, metaphor, or symbol that appears over and over again in a work
Essential Questions – Journal Topics – Choose 1
· What does it mean to be a kind, decent person?
· What does it mean to be a pushover and what does it mean to be kind?
· Is life a game?
Chapter 6
1. Why does Holden get so upset when Stradlater criticizes the topic of the essay?
2. Why is Holden so concerned about what happened with Jane Gallagher and Stradlater? What does this possibly reveal about Holden? (42)
3. What do Holden and Stradlater fight over?
4. (MOTIF) What does Holden put on after the fight? Have we seen him put this on before (45)?
Chapter 7
1. What opinion about religion is Salinger expressing through Ackley’s treatment of Holden?
2. Why doesn’t Holden want to stay at Pencey anymore? (50-51)
3. Where does Holden then decide to go? (51)
4. What is his final good-bye to Pencey Prep?
5. Why do you think Holden was crying as he left?
Delving-In Questions – Assignment #1 – Analysis Paragraph –Choose One Topic
1. What is Holden’s mental and emotional state? How do you know?
2. Is Holden himself guilty of being a phony?
3. Is Holden mature or immature? Or both? How do you know?
4. We find out a lot about Holden through his reactions to and thoughts about Jane Gallagher. What do we discover about Holden’s character?
______
______
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______
Chapter 8
1. What does Holden think of Mrs. Morrow?
2. What are some of the lies Holden tells Mrs. Morrow?
3. Why do you think he tells her these things?
4. Is Holden being phony???
Chapter 9
1. Sally Hayes’ mother says that Holden “was wild and that [he] had no direction in life” (59). Would you agree? Why?
2. (MOTIF) The cab driver thinks Holden is kind of crazy for asking him a certain question. What is this question? Is it a question that he has been concerned with before?
3. What is so terrible about the bellboy? (61) What does this reveal about Holden?
4. What kind of person is Faith Cavendish? (66)
Chapter 10 (Stop reading Chapter after reading about Phoebe, 66-68)
1. Who is Phoebe, and what is Holden's opinion of her?
2. What evidence is there that shows us that Holden probably doesn't look as old as he says he looks?
Chapter 11
1. What is Holden worried about in terms of Jane and Stradlater? Why? What does this reveal about Holden’s character?
2. Why is Jane so special to Holden? Describe their past relationship.
Poetry Connection: Sara Teasdale’s “The Look”“The Look”
Sara Teasdale
Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.
Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest,
Robin’s lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin’s eyes
Haunts me night and day
1. What is this poem about?
2. How does this poem relate to Holden’s relationship with Jane?
3. WRITING: Write a well-developed paragraph in which you use ideas from both passages to establish a controlling idea about love.
Getting Things Straight: The Catcher in the Rye - Chapters 12-16
Chapter 12
1. What do Holden and the cab driver talk about?
2. Explain why Holden leaves Ernie’s?
Chapter 13
1. What does it mean to be “yellow”?
2. Previously, Holden stated he was a “pacifist.” Does his description of how he would deal with the "glove thief" support this, or is he just "yellow"?
3. Why does Holden stop when girls tell him to? How does this characterize Holden?
4. Why do you think he doesn’t have sex with the prostitute?
Chapter 14
1. Does Holden have any guilty feelings about Allie?Explain. Do you feel this is abnormal in any way or normal? Explain.
2. What makes Holden cry?
Chapter 15
1. What is the point that Holden tries to make about people when he elaborates about the suitcases of the nuns and of his former roommate?
2. How does Holden treat the nuns?
3. Why does Holden think it spoils a conversation if someone asks what religion he is?
Chapter 16
1. Who does Holden make a date with? Why does he call her up if he thinks she's a phony?
2. How does Holden treat little kids? Give an example.
Getting Things Straight: The Catcher in the Rye - Chapters 17-20
Chapter 17 (MUSIC CONNECTION: Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to the Machine”)
1. How do Holden's feelings for women compare to his feelings for men? (123)
2. What is Holden's point about the difference between men owning a car and men owning a horse? (131)
3. How does Holden describe a boy's school when talking to Sally? (131)
4. Why does Holden want to take off with Sally now instead of after college? What is the difference in his eyes? (133)
5. On page 132, in The Catcher in the Rye, Holden shares his “idea” with Sally Hayes. What is his idea? What is Sally’s reaction and response?
Chapter 18
1. Why did Holden think the woman who cried through the movie was a phony? (140) Do you agree?
Chapter 19
1. Why did Holden get mad at Luce for calling his (Luce's) old girlfriend the "Whore of New Hampshire"? What theme is shown?
Chapter 20
1. What does Holden pretend happens to him at the Wicker Bar? (p. 150)
2. Why do you think Holden picks up all the broken record pieces?
3. Where does Holden go after he leaves the bar? (p. 154)
4. What information does Holden finally tell us about Allie’s funeral?
5. What does Holden say about Allie that contradicts all his other statements about being an atheist?
6. After he leaves the park, where does Holden go?
Poetry and Music Connection: “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost& “Another Brick in the Wall” by Pink Floyd
Compare and contrast Frost’s wall with Pink Floyd’s wall:
“Mending Wall”by Robert Frost / “Another Brick in the Wall” by Pink Floyd
What is the reason for the wall?
How and what does it divide?
How does each piece make you feel?
What images stand out from each?
What is the poem’s/song’s *theme?
*theme: underlying meaning of a literary work. It makes some statement about or expresses some opinion on a topic. (For example, the topic of a story might be war, while the theme might be the idea that war is useless.)
Another Brick in the Wall Part 1 (Waters) 3:41
Daddy's flown across the ocean
Leaving just a memory
Snapshot in the family album
Daddy what else did you leave for me?
Daddy, what'd'ja leave behind for me?!?
All in all it was just a brick in the wall.
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall.
"You! Yes, you! Stand still laddy!"
Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 (Waters) 3:56
We don't need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.
We don't need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.
"Wrong, Do it again!"
"If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you
have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?"
"You! Yes, you behind the bike-sheds, stand still laddy!"
“MENDING WALL”
Robert Frost
1 Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
5 The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
10 No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
15 We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
20 We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
25 My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
30 'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
35 Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
40 In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
45 He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
1. What is the speaker’s attitude about the wall? Find a line for support
2. The “gaps” the speaker refers to in lines 9–11 might refer to gaps in a stone wall. What else might they refer to in this context?
3. What does the wall symbolize? Explain
Getting Things Straight: The Catcher in the Rye - Chapters 21-26
Literary Definitions
Theme – underlying meaning of a literary work. It makes some statement about or expresses some opinion on a topic. (For example, the topic of a story might be war, while the theme might be the idea that war is useless.)
Essential Questions – Journal Topics – Choose 1
· What does it mean to be mature and immature? What does it mean to be grown up?
· Why are people cruel to one another?
· How do people deal with seeing cruelty around them?
Chapter 21
1. What is the one critique Holden has about Phoebe?
2. Why does Phoebe become so upset?
Chapter 22
1. Why did it depress Holden when an "old guy" told him that his days at Pencey were the happiest days of his life?
2. What does it tell us about Holden when Phoebe states, "You don't like anything that's happening"?
3. Why does Holden think about James Castle when Phoebe asks him to name one thing that he likes a lot?