The Catcher in the Rye: Missing Chapters

Introduction

The Catcher in the Rye is a fascinating and respected piece of literature.  Published in 1951 by J. D. Salinger, the book focuses on the life of a teenager, Holden Caulfield, in post-WWII society.  As the story develops, readers learn more about Holden’s personality and past, from the death of his brother to his hatred of phonies.  Despite revealing a wealth of information on this controversial character, much is still unclear.  What events led to his retreat into a mental hospital?  What happens afterwards?  What about Jane? With this collection of short stories, English 10 Honors attempts to fill in some of these gaps.  If you just want to see the stories without the summary, just refer to the table of contents.  Enjoy!

Table of Contents

Why Holden Hates Phonies (Chapter 1, Samuel Pfrommer)

The Untold Garage Scene (Chapter 5, Maggie Reilly)

Jane Continued (Chapter 11.5, Finlay Collins)

Allie and the Ducks (Chapter 12, Catherine Gorey)

Vermont (Chapter 17.5, Juliana Mazzotta)

Phoebe In Wonderland (Chapter 20.5, Brooks Daley)

The Psychoanalyst (Chapter 25.5, Valerie Le)

Eastridge Academy (Epilogue, Emily Roberson)

Two Lonely Guys With Two Healing Hearts (Epilogue, Wen Yan Toh)

Sally and the Tree (Epilogue, Katie Huffert)

Chapters 1-5

One of Holden’s personal quirks in this novel is his repeated use of the word “phony” to describe people who seem inauthentic.  This missing chapter (Why Holden Hates Phonies by Samuel Pfrommer) gives some context to Holden’s hatred of phonyism before launching into the story. 

Holden makes clear that he is narrating this tale, but he does not want to get into his background.  Instead, he starts discussing the “madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas” (Salinger 1).  The story starts at Pencey Prep football match against Saxon Hall, where everyone but Holden is attending.  Having returned early from a fencing meet where he lost the team’s foils, he has no interest in watching the game and instead goes to see his history teacher, Mr. Spencer.  Despite initially liking Mr. Spencer, Holden begins to hate him after being criticized harshly for his poor academic performance (which forced the school to bar him from returning after winter break).

Upon returning to the dormitories, Holden begins reading Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen.  He is soon interrupted by Ackley, an older student who lives next door.  Holden comments on Ackley’s poor hygiene, disgusting habits, and lack of friends.  Despite Holden’s hints that he should get out, Ackley only retreats to his room when Stradlater, Holden’s handsome and popular roommate, enters.  Stradlater reveals that he is going on a date with Jane Gallagher, a former close friend of Holden’s.  Holden wants to speak to Jane, but ends up deciding against it because he is not in the mood.  Instead, he has to write a composition for Stradlater, who won’t have time to do his homework because of his date.

Ackley, Mal Brossard, and Holden agree to go see a movie (even though Holden says he hates their company).  While the other two are getting ready, Holden writes a composition about his dead brother Allie’s baseball glove and reveals that he smashed all the windows in the garage the day of his death.  Here is a chapter called “The Untold Garage Scene” by Maggie Reilly discussing this scene in more detail.

Chapters 6-11

When Stradlater returns, he criticizes Holden’s composition, leading to Holden throwing it away in anger.  Fearing that Stradlater had sex with Jane, Holden asks him about his date.  Stradlater refuses to give details, causing Holden to take a swing at Stradlater and insult him.  In the ensuing conflict, Stradlater punches Holden in the face, causing serious injury and forcing Holden to clean himself up in Ackley’s room.  After Ackley refuses to let Holden sleep in Ely’s bed, who is gone for the weekend, Holden decides to pack his bags and spend a few days in the city before the expulsion letter reaches his parents.  He dons his symbolic red hunting hat, shouts “Sleep tight, ya morons!” and leaves.

Holden then takes a train to New York.  Along the way, he meets the mother of a former classmate, Ernest.  Despite not liking Ernest (“doubtless the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey”), he lies to his mother, saying that Ernest is popular and very humble (54).

Upon arriving in New York, Holden considers calling somebody, but ultimately decides against it.  From his hotel room window, Holden watches what he calls “perverts”: a cross-dressing man and a couple spitting into each other’s faces.  He eventually calls Faith Cavendish, a girl who he heard “wouldn’t mind doing it once in a while” (63).  However, she turns down his advances because it’s too late; when she offers to meet him for a cocktail tomorrow, he refuses.

Holden then goes down to the Lavender Room--the bar of the hotel.  Despite him often being able to order alcohol by seeming older than he actually is, the waiter refuses to bring him drinks.  Holden then dances with three blondes; though he considers one of them cute and a good dancer, he deems all of them stupid and not fit for intellectual conversation.

Left to himself in the lobby, Holden reminisces about Jane.  Though the two never had a physical relationship, Holden says that she was great to hold hands with.  He also hints that Jane may have been abused by the “booze hound her mother was married to” (78).  After one abrasive encounter between Jane and her father, Holden recalls how she started to cry.  Holden then comforts and kisses her, which is the closest they ever got to “necking.”  In this missing chapter titled “Jane Continued” by Finlay Collins, Holden actually gets in contact with Jane; in the original book, this never happens.

Holden then gets into a cab to go to Ernie’s nightclub.  On the way, he voices his concern over what happens to the ducks in the lagoon by Central Park South to the cab driver, who writes him off.  This piece by Caroline Gorey, entitled “Allie and the Ducks,” provides additional information about why the ducks are important to Holden and how they relate to his brother Allie.

Chapters 12-17

Holden arrives at the nightclub, but leaves quickly after running into his brother D.B.’s former girlfriend Lillian Simmons there and returns to his room at hotel.  On the way up, he accepts the operator’s offer for a prostitute.  However, he to nervous to actually do anything with her when she comes up.  The prostitute, Sunny, demands ten dollars, but Holden only gives the five that he agrees on. Later, the pimp Maurice beats up Holden and gets the additional five dollars.

The following morning, Holden arranges a date with his former girlfriend, Sally.  While eating breakfast, he meets two nuns.  After donating ten dollars for a future collection, Holden discusses Romeo and Juliet with them.  Despite disliking Catholics in general because of their nosiness about other people’s religion, he nevertheless enjoys their company.

Trying to fill the time until his date with Sally, Holden buys a record--“Little Shirley Beans”-- for his sister, Phoebe.  He also hears a boy singing “Comin’ Thro’ the Rye”; however, a misquote of the first line of the poem leads to Holden misinterpreting its meaning.  Holden then goes into the Museum of Natural History, where he used to go with his class when he was younger.  The frozen statues remind him of how much he has changed while the museum seems untouched.

Holden meets Sally and the two go to the theater to see the Lunts perform.  Sally is enthusiastic, but Holden feels like the actors are so good that they become phony.  Afterwards, the two go skating and Holden begins to tell her about all the problems in his life.  Becoming increasingly ridiculous, Holden proposes that they run away to Vermont together.  When Sally refuses, Holden calls her a royal pain in the ass and leaves Sally in tears.  This chapter (“Vermont” by Juliana Mazzotta) provides additional information about Holden’s connection to Vermont and provides the context surrounding his desire to go there with Sally.

Chapters 18-20

Seeking company, Holden calls his former Student Advisor from Whooton, Carl Luce, for drinks.  After going to see a play and a movie, Holden meets Luce at the Wicker Bar. Luce quickly becomes annoyed at Holden’s immature questions and leaves.  He does, however, recommend that Holden seek psychological treatment.

Holden gets very drunk at the bar.  After waking up Sally with a unintelligible phone call, he goes to see the ducks in Central Park.  While walking, he drops Phoebe’s record and it “[breaks] into about fifty pieces” (154).  He imagines what his funeral would be like if he died of pneumonia and says that the only good part would be that Phoebe would not be allowed to go because she’s too young.  This missing chapter- “Phoebe in Wonderland” by Brooks Daley-picks up the thread from here.

Chapters 21-end

Holden heads to his family’s apartment to speak with Phoebe.  Though she is overjoyed to see him, she becomes angry when she finds out that he has been kicked out of school again.  When Holden justifies his actions by saying he hates school, Phoebe accuses him of hating everything.  Holden then reveals that all he wants to do is be “the catcher in the rye”; saving children from falling off a cliff into the adult world, which he regards as evil.  Phoebe says that he has misunderstood the poem, and the true text is “If a body meet a body coming through the rye” (173).

After hiding from his parents in a closet, Holden gives Phoebe his red hunting hat and leaves for his former English teacher, Mr. Antolini.  Mr. Antolini, drunk, lectures him on a great “fall” that he feels is going to come for Holden.  Eventually, the day’s events take their toll and Holden falls asleep.  When he wakes up, he finds Mr. Antolini stroking his head and leaves, suspecting that Mr. Antolini is a pervert.  He says, on a dark note, “That kind of stuff’s happened to me about twenty times since I was a kid” (193).

Holden passes the night sleeping on a bench in Grand Central Station.  The following morning, he walks aimlessly up and down the street.  Every time he reaches a crosswalk, he feels as if he will fall into oblivion and begs Allie to allow him to reach the other side safely.  He eventually goes to Phoebe’s school and leaves a note for Phoebe to meet him.  In the note, he writes that he plans to go west that afternoon.  Walking through the school, he becomes angry at all the expletives written on the walls; he removes one, but realizes that there is no way that he can clean them all.

When Holden meets Phoebe, she reveals that she wants to go with him out west.  When he refuses, the two become angry and walk in silence to the zoo.  Holden persuades Phoebe to go on the carousel, and was “near bawling” from happiness at reconciling with his sister and seeing her ride on the carousel (213).  He tells Phoebe that he is not going to leave after all.

Holden finishes his narrative by mentioning that he is in a rest home, talking to a psychoanalyst. Valerie Le explores this topic, informing the reader on just how Holden got to the Californian psychoanalyst's office through the chapter “The Psychoanalyst.” Although he feels ridiculous trying to predict the future, he plans on applying himself in school next year.

Three different epilogues were written to take a stab at what Holden’s future might have looked like after the novel took place.  They resolve some of the unanswered questions that we were left guessing about in The Catcher in the Rye.

Eastridge Academy by Emily Roberson

Question: What about Jane?

Holden is now attending a new academy after flunking out of Pencey. He learns that Jane is a student who has transferred to Eastridge also. The untold story of Holden’s meeting with Jane is revealed in this short story. 

Two Lonely Guys With Two Healing Hearts by Wen Yan Toh

Question: What happens to Holden?

Holden has become good friends with his roommate at his new boarding school, Addison Nazeski. Yet, their connections run deeper than they appear and information about Addison is found as the story continues. Find out more about these Two Lonely Guys With Two Healing Hearts.   

Sally and the Tree by Katie Huffert

Question: What about Holden’s promise to Sally?

It is about five years after all the “madman stuff that happened around Christmas.” Holden is busy studying for finals at his college, and in the midst of a flurry of papers, he discovers an old photograph from the Christmas after the summer at the psychoanalyst’s. Holden recalls the “helluva” Christmas party he hosted, and the promise he had made and finally kept to Sally Hayes.