“The Cather in the Rye”: Summary Chapters 1-8

Holden’s story begins on the Saturday following the end of classes at the Pencey prep school in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. Pencey is Holden’s fourth school; he has already failed out of three others. At Pencey, he has failed four out of five of his classes and has received notice that he is being expelled, but he is not scheduled to return home to Manhattan until Wednesday. He visits his elderly history teacher, Spencer, to say goodbye, but when Spencer tries to reprimand him for his poor academic performance, Holden becomes annoyed. Back in the dormitory, Holden is further irritated by his unclean neighbor, Ackley, and by his own roommate, Stradlater. Stradlater spends the evening on a date with Jane Gallagher. A girl whom Holden may be in love with. They met back on Maine on their summer places, she is the girl next door and they have spent a lot of time together during the summer.

Holden got very irritated when Stradlater told him that they didn’t go anywhere on the date, but stay on the car of Ed Banks, the basketball coach. Students are not allowed to use car from the faculty, but in the case of athletes, it was different; “all the athletic bastards stick together” (43). Holden is a lonely guy; he has been expelled from schools four times already and has no friends. He got in a fight with Stradlater or better say he got punch and bet up by Stradlater .Then he decides leave Pency on Saturday night and not to wait until Wednesday as he has planned. He will go back to New York and stay in a not too very expensive hotel, he didn’t want to go back home before his parent s new he has been expelled from Pency, he thought it would be better if he came home on Wednesday after their parents have already digested the bad news.

Holden takes the train back to New York, on the same wagon he meets this old, but very attractive woman whom happen to very the mother of Ernest Morrow. Another student at Pency. Then Holden introduced himself as Rudolph Schmidt, which is actually the janitor’s name. He told this lady her son was such a great person, that he was very popular and they tried to elect him class president but he dint not accepted because he is very shy. Holden couldn’t stop him self from lies, he could keep going on all night, he even told her he had to leave Pency because he was going to get a brain tumor operation.