The catcher in the rye

The Catcher in the Rye

Chapters 7-8

Holden talks for a while with Ackley and then tries to fall asleep in the bed belonging to Ackley’s roommate, who isaway for the weekend. But he cannot stop imagining Jane fooling around with Stradlater, and he has trouble falling asleep. He wakes Ackley and talks with himsome more, asking whether he could run off and join a monastery without being Catholic. Ackley is annoyed by the conversation, and Holden is annoyed by Ackley’s“phoniness,” so he leaves. Outside, in the dorm’s hallway, he decides that he will leave for New York that night instead of waiting until Wednesday. After passinga few days there in secret, he will wait until his parents have digested the news of his expulsion before he returns to their apartment. He packs his bags, donshis hunting hat, and begins to cry. As he heads into the hallway, he yells “Sleep tight, ya morons!” to the boys on his floor before stepping outside to leavePencey forever. Holden walks to the train station and catches a late train to New York. At Trenton, an attractive older woman sits next to him, she turns out tobe the mother of his classmate, Ernest. He dislikes Ernest but tells extravagant lies about him to his mother, he lie about his name. Later, in order to escapethe invitation of Morrow’s mother to spend a week with them at their summer cottage, Holden says that he’s going on a trip with his grandmother to SouthAmerica over the summer. This is ironic, he thinks, since his grandmother is the one person in his family who doesn’t go anywhere.

Alexia Sánchez Heredia