The Catcher in the Rye Summary & ending explained

I'm not going to give you my whole life story. I'm out West now, resting, and the people here want me to talk. So I'll tell you about a few days last December, the ones that wore me down so badly they sent me out here. That's all. My older brother D.B. lives close by and visits a lot. He writes movies in Hollywood now, and I try not to hold it against him.

It started on a Saturday at Pencey Prep, in Pennsylvania. Everybody in the school was down at the big football game against Saxon Hall, yelling their heads off. I was up on a hill by myself, next to an old cannon, watching the stands get smaller in the cold. I was supposed to be the manager of the fencing team, but that morning I'd left all the foils on the subway in New York. The whole team had to ride home with nothing to fence with. They wouldn't talk to me on the train.

The other thing was, I'd been kicked out. Four subjects out of five, flunked cold. Christmas vacation started Wednesday, and after that I wasn't supposed to come back. It wasn't even the first school.

I went to say goodbye to old Spencer, my history teacher. He had the flu and was sitting in a ratty bathrobe with nose drops all over the table. He was a good guy, but he made me sit there while he read my exam aloud, this lousy page I'd written about the Egyptians, with the little note at the bottom telling him it was fine to flunk me. Then he took the headmaster's side, all that stuff comparing life to some sports match with rules.

I nodded. All the time he was lecturing, I kept thinking about the lagoon in Central Park and the ducks on it. When the water freezes over in winter, where do the ducks go? Does anybody even check on them? I wanted to know so badly.

I got out of there fast. Back in the dorm, my roommate Stradlater was shaving for a big date. I asked him who the girl was.

He said her name was Jane Gallagher.