Holden as the "Catcher in the Rye" Quiz

Answer: writer

"He used to be just a regular writer, when he was home. Now he's out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute. If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies. Don't even mention them to me." D.B. isn't a real prostitute, but Holden calls him one because he is selling himself to the movie industry.

Answer: English

Holden is talking with Mr. Spencer:
"How many subjects did you carry this term?"
"Five, sir."
"Five. And how many are you failing in?"
"Four. I passed English alright."

Answer: liar

"I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible."

Answer: a red hunting hat

Holden's late brother Allie had bright red hair, and Holden's red hunting hat reminds him of Allie.

Answer: Allie's baseball glove

"I wrote about my brother Allie's baseball mitt. My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder's mitt. He had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them on it so that he'd have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up to bat."

Answer: He punched out all the windows in the garage

"I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage. I slept in the garage the night Allie died, and I broke all the windows with my fist, just for the hell of it. My hand still hurts me once in a while."

Answer: a pacifist

"I'd only been in about two fights in my life, and I lost both of them. I'm not too tough. I'm a pacifist, if you want to know the truth."

Answer: dead

Holden says that he wished he was dead several times throughout the novel because he always seems to be lonely. He thinks his life really sucks.

Answer: He is having a brain tumor removed

When talking to Mrs. Morrow on the train, Holden does not want to tell her that he got kicked out of Pencey, so he tells her he is having an operation. When she gets very worried, he says he is only having a small brain tumor removed.

Answer: What happens to the ducks when the lagoon in Central Park freezes?

Holden desperately wants to know where the ducks go when the pond freezes over, so he asks almost everyone he can. He even goes so far as wondering if a truck comes to pick them up.

Answer: Write stories

"She writes books all the time. Only she doesn't finish them. They're all about some kid named Hazel Weatherfield - only old Phoebe spells it 'Hazle'".

Answer: movie stars

The girls in the club are looking for movie stars, and they don't pay much attention to Holden. While he is dancing with one of them, he says he just saw Gary Cooper, and the girl freaks out.

Answer: hold hands

"She was terrific to hold hands with. Most girls if you hold hands with them, their hand dies on your, or else they think they have to keep moving their hand all the time. Jane was different."

Answer: He is yellow

"I never seem to have anything that if I lost it I'd care too much. Maybe that's why I'm partly yellow. The more I thought about my gloves and my yellowness, the more depressed I got."

Answer: Yes

"If you want to know the truth, I'm a virgin. I really am. I've had quite a few opportunities to lose my virginity and all, but I've never got around to it yet."

Answer: Talks to Allie

"Boy I felt miserable. I felt so depressed, you can't imagine. What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud, to Allie. I do that sometimes when I get very depressed."

Answer: Disciples

"I like Jesus and all, but I don't care much for most of the other stuff in the Bible. Take the Disciples, for instance. They annoy the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth."

Answer: luggage

"It isn't important, I know, but I hate it when somebody has cheap suitcases. It sounds terrible to say it, but I can even get to hate somebody, just looking at them, if they have cheap suitcases with them."

Answer: False

"War wouldn't be too bad if they'd just take you out and shoot you or something, but you have to stay in the Army so long. That's the whole trouble. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right on top of the atomic bomb."

Answer: her middle name

"Her middle name is Josephine, for God's sake, not Weatherfield. She doesn't like it though. Every time I see her she's got a new middle name for herself."

Answer: jumped out the window

"James Castle wouldn't take back something he said about this very conceited guy, Phile Stabile. Finally, what he did, instead of taking back what he said, he jumped out the window. I was in the shower and all, and even I could hear him land outside."

Answer: Catcher in the rye

"What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."

Answer: False

"I don't want to scare you", he said, "but I can very clearly see you dying nobly, one way or another, for some highly unworthy cause."

Answer: Shut up

"'So shut up', she said. It was the first time she ever told me to shut up. It sounded terrible. God, it sounded terrible. It sounded worse than swearing."

Answer: a mental institution

Although Salinger never comes out and directly says that Holden is in a mental institution, it is pretty easy to figure out where he is through the clues given in the last chapter of the novel.