Holden Caulfield is a 16 years old ‘student‘, who has been expelled from yet another school for his poor achievement. The story is told in the first person, Holden, who does not know what he wants in life, or why people want what they want of him, or why he does lots of the things he does, or why they do lots of what they do. He has just flunked out of Pencey Prep., just like all his other schools, and he can't figure out what he is going to do. He leaves school a few days earlier to the end of term, and goes to New York to 'take a vacation' before returning home. He wanders about the city and meets a lot of people. He drinks a lot. He gets sick. He loves his brothers (one live- D.B, one dead- Allie) and his sister- Phoebe. The book describes Holden's thoughts and activities over these few days, during which he spends in New York. He knows whom he likes and whom he doesn't. Mostly he doesn't. There are lots of ‘phonies‘ around him and that's what he likes least. He tries not to be phony himself, and mostly he succeeds. He'd like to find answers to his questions, but by the end of the book he still hasn't found them. That's phony. They didn't even get the question, let alone the answer. He still wonders what the point is really.

Characters:
Holden Caulfield
- a 17 years old student
- tall, skinny; seems to be older than he is

Behaviour:
- sometimes rude and cheeky but mostly polite nad well-behaved
- smokes and drinks a lot (quite addicted)
- talkative nature
- spontaneous
- he doesn’t show his feelings
- he asks needless questions and gives childish arguments (f.e. he asks the taxi driver where the dugs go when the lake freezes over)
- he is rebellious but he still obeys some some rules of good behaviour (f.e. while talking with nuns)
- he uses slang expressions and vulgarisms (sonuvabitch, goddam, bastard, ass)
- Holden is very immature, but believes that he is mature
- his feelings are different from his acting

Feelings:
- confused, mixed-up
- he doesn’t show his feelings, because he dousn’t want to be hurt
- dissapointed, disgusted, lonely, downhearted
- likes children and want to protect them
- he hates the hipocrisy of the world
- he doesn’t like anyone, especially phonies

Emotions:
- hates almost everybody except Phoebe and his dead brother Allie (at the end he realizes that he actually doesn’t hate the people)
- he likes children and want to protect them
- he is afraid of opening his feelings

Attitude to school:
- hate school as a system
- he hates the students, teachers and headmasters

Attitude to parents:
- considers them also phony
- on one hand he’s afraid of his father, on the other hand, he feels sorry for them as he has been expelled from another school

Attitude to children:
- he likes their innocence and purity
- wants to protect them

Abilities:
- smart, intelligent, capable, good at writing compositions
- he starts the conversation very easily
- talkative; he knots the contacts very easily (three women in the bar, nuns,...)

Personality:
* positives
- talkative, sensitive, likes books, bright, smart
*negatives
- vulgar, layer, irresponsible, lazy, no ambitions to life
- he complains about the world and people around him a lot
- he’s unable to adapt, calculating
- moody, very complicated
- often immature