Summary 3

                                                                "The Catcher in the Rye"
                                                                            By J.D. Salinger

Holden, being in the city, drinks a lot of alcohol and feels loneliness. He thinks about the Museum of Natural History, which he often visited as a child. He contrasts his evolving life with the statues of Eskimos in a diorama. The boy considers so because of his brother's death, Allie. Eventually, he sneaks into his parents' apartment while they are out. There Holden visits his younger sister,Phoebe, the only person with whom he seems to be able to communicate. The boy shares a fantasy he has been thinking about. He pictures himself as the sole guardian of a group of children running and playing in a huge rye field on the edge of a cliff. His job is to catch the children if, in their abandon, they come close to falling off the brink, to be a "catcher in the rye." Because of this misinterpretation, Holden believes that to be a "catcher in the rye" means to save children from losing their innocence.