The Catcher in the Rye: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Holden returns to his dorm, thinking as he goes about how good he is at lying. Although he told Mr. Spencer that he needed to collect his things from the gym, he doesn’t actually keep anything there—he simply wanted to get away from the old man. As he enters the dorm building, he thinks about the fact that it’s named after a Pencey alumnus who got rich from owning funeral homes. He remembers this man visiting Pencey one time to see the first football game of the year, recalling that he drove up in a fancy Cadillac and then told the students that they should never be too sheepish to pray. All the while, Holden couldn’t stop thinking that he was nothing but a “phony bastard.”

Alone in his room, Holden reads while wearing his new red hunting cap, which he bought while in New York City with the fencing team. He thinks about how much he likes reading books, but Robert Ackley, his neighbor, barges in and interrupts him. Holden finds Ackley annoying and repulsive, since he’s tactless and has bad hygiene. Worse, Ackley acts as if a person should feel lucky to spend time with him even though everyone dislikes him. As Holden tries to read, Ackley paces around his room and picks up various objects before putting them down again in the wrong spot. He takes special pleasure in doing this to the things that belong to Holden’s roommate, Ward Stradlater, whom Ackley hates. Even Holden thinks that Stradlater is conceited, but he doesn’t mind him for the most part. 

Ackley asks Holden about the fencing match in New York, and Holden is forced to tell him that he left the team’s equipment on the subway. Although Holden tries to make it clear that he doesn’t want to talk, Ackley continues to ask him questions about his mistake. Finally, Holden tells him to stop talking about it, saying, “How ’bout sitting down or something, Ackley kid?” He says this because he knows that Ackley hates being called “Ackley kid,” especially since he’s 18 and Holden is only 16. Still, this doesn’t stop Ackley from bugging him until Stradlater finally returns from the football game, at which point Ackley returns to his own room.

When Stradlater enters the room, he explains that he and his date decided to leave the football game early. He then asks Holden if he can borrow his houndstooth jacket, but Holden hesitates to answer, instead wondering where Stradlater’s date is. Unlike Ackley, Holden is rather fond of Stradlater, despite the fact that he’s an overly confident person who clearly likes himself a little too much. One of the reasons Holden is able to see past this is because Stradlater is also quite kind—the type of person who would give a classmate his tie if the classmate said he liked it. As Stradlater takes off his shirt and heads to the bathroom to shave his face, he explains that his date is waiting for him downstairs.