The Catcher in the Rye: Chapter 17 Summary & Analysis

Holden has time to spare before Sally arrives, especially since she’s always late. As he waits, he looks at the many attractive women who pass him by, and though this entertains him, he can’t help but think about how they’ll probably all grow up to marry boring men. He then ruminates on what it means to be boring, concluding that some boring people aren’t so bad, since most people have hidden talents that might redeem them. When Sally finally arrives, Holden can’t stay mad at her for being late because she looks so good. However, he gets annoyed at the sound of her voice and the “phony” words she chooses. Nonetheless, though, he focuses on how attractive she is, feeling glad that he decided to call her.       

On the cab ride to the theater, Holden convinces Sally to “horse around” with him, though she doesn’t want to at first because—according to Holden—she doesn’t want to mess up her lipstick. After they kiss for a while, Holden suddenly decides that he wants to marry her, and he blurts out that he loves her. “Oh, darling, I love you too,” Sally responds before telling him that he should let his hair grow out. This annoys Holden, but he doesn’t say anything.

Holden doesn’t find the play as bad as he expected it to be, but he still thinks it’s “on the crappy side.” The actors’ performances seem phony and conceited to him, but Sally loves it. During the first intermission, she runs into a boy she once met at another school, and they spend the entirety of the intermission talking about the play. The way they converse disgusts Holden, especially when the boy refers to the actors as “angels,” but there’s nothing he can do to stop them from talking. To his horror, he also has to endure their “phony” conversation during the second intermission. By the time Holden and Sally finally leave the boy behind after the play, Holden feels as if he hates Sally, though he agrees to go ice-skating at Radio City when she enthusiastically proposes the idea.

Holden suspects that Sally only wants to go skating because the rink gives girls a small dress to wear. And though it annoys him that Sally purposefully walks in front of him so he can see how her behind looks in this dress, he can’t deny that she looks good in it. When they finally get on the ice, it becomes clear that they’re both terrible skaters, so they soon retire to a small bar-restaurant near the rink, where Holden tries to order a scotch and soda but ends up having to order Coke. As they sit there, Sally asks if he’s going to come over on Christmas Eve to help her trim the tree—an invitation she extended in a letter to which he claims to have responded. Irritated, Holden tells her that he’s going to come.

On edge because of the play and because of Sally’s question about Christmas Eve, Holden suddenly leans forward and asks if she ever gets fed up with stuff like school. She admits that she’s often bored in class, but he presses on, saying that this isn’t what he means. He says he hates school and everything else: taxis, New York, phony guys like the one they met at the play, having to take elevators, going to the tailor—as he goes on, Sally interrupts him and asks him not to shout, which he finds funny because he isn’t raising his voice. Still, he goes on, saying that he never wants to become the kind of person who cares about his car. He also says that he’s only in New York because of Sally and would otherwise be off in a cabin in the woods.

Holden tells Sally that she should try going to a boys’ school sometime, since boys’ schools are “full of phonies.” The only point of these schools, he argues, is to someday lead the kind of life that might allow you to buy a Cadillac. He also laments the ways in which other students group together according to various categories, pointing out that all the Catholics and athletes and academics always flock to one another. Seizing on the idea of leaving New York, he suggests that he and Sally should run away to New England and live in a cabin together. They could get married, he says, and he could find a job and chop wood to stay warm in the winter. “You can’t just do something like that,” Sally says, annoyed by his enthusiasm. She then asks him to stop yelling, even though he insists that he’s being quiet.

Sally reminds Holden that they’re too young to go off on their own, insisting that they’ll have plenty of time in life to do whatever they want. This, Holden says, is exactly the point—by the time they’re adults, they won’t want to pick up and escape to the cabins of New England. By then, he argues, they’ll have too many obligations and will be wrapped up in the monotonous ins and outs of everyday life. He then says that Sally doesn’t understand him, and she agrees with this statement, adding that he probably doesn’t even understand himself. In response, he calls her a “royal pain in the ass,” and she begins to cry. Holden quickly apologizes, but also can’t keep himself from laughing. She then tells him to leave, so he listens to her, thinking as he goes that he probably wouldn’t have wanted to elope with her anyway.