Characters

Phoebe

Phoebe is Holden´s 10 year old sister. She is really smart. she´s has all A´s ever since she started school. She has this sort of red hair that´s very short in the summer. Sometimes she braids her hair. She´s quite skinny, nice skinny. She´s also the best dancer ever, and the most sympathetic listener ever, and the funniest little sister ever.



The way Phoebe vibrates between acting like a little kid and grown-up reminds us Holden himself. no wonder he wants to protect her so badly. she is a child, but she does not fit into Holden’s romanticized vision of childlike innocence.

Holden

Holden is a sixteen year old that sometimes act like he is about thirteen. He is six foot two and a half and he has gray hair on the right side of his head.

He has just been expelled for academic failure from a school called Pencey Prep. Although he is intelligent and sensitive, Holden narrates in a cynical and jaded voice. 

Through his cynicism he tries to protect himself from the pain and disappointment of the adult world. He is uncomfortable with his own weaknesses, and at times displays as much phoniness, meanness, and superficiality as anyone else.

Holden is literally about to crash. Life is change. His feelings are typically adolescent, feelings shared by virtually everyone who is or ever has been his age. One of the reasons we like Holden is that he is so candid about how he feels.

Ackley

Ackley is dirty, pimply, and all-around unhygienic. He's annoying. He'll come into your room and pick up your personal stuff and put it back in the wrong place. He'll cut his toenails all over your floor. And he thinks being two years older than Holden makes him superior.

He is Holden’s next door neighbor in Pencey prep. He acts stupid and often rushes into Holden’s room and disturbs him. Holden and Ackley are both lonely and desperate.

D.B Caulfield

D.B. is Holden's older brother. He is a screenwriter in Hollywood. He used to write great stories, he has a maseratti, so that means he is successful. D. B. wrote a volume of short stories that Holden admires very much, but Holden feels that D. B. prostitutes his talents by writing for Hollywood movies.

But D.B.’s just one more phony in a world full of phonies. What really matters about D.B. is that he was in the war and was apparently quite traumatized by the whole thing.

He was in the army for 4 years, he was in the war too, but he hated the army more than the war

Stradlater 

Holden’s roommate at Pencey Prep.

Stradlater is super dreamy, the typical guy every girl wants: he's an athlete, he's handsome, he's got a nice body, he's always walking around in a towel to show off that body, self-satisfied, popular, but his toiletries, such as his razor, are disgustingly unclean, and, oh yeah, he's a "goddam stupid moron”, But there's one thing Stradlater is good at: sex.

If this is one of Holden's only models of a sexually active man, no wonder he has so many hangups about sex.

He's also careless of other people's feelings.

Mr. Spencer

Holden’s history teacher at Pencey Prep, who unsuccessfully tries to shake Holden out of his academic apathy.

Mr. Spencer is old. And gross.

“The minute I went in, I was sort of sorry I'd come. He was reading The Atlantic Monthly, and there were pills and medicine all over the place, and everything smelled like Vicks Nose Drops. It was pretty depressing. I'm not too crazy about sick people, anyway. What made it even more depressing, old Spencer had on this very sad, ratty old bathrobe that he was probably born in or something. I don't much like to see old guys in their pajamas and bathrobes anyway.”

Mr. Spencer can't understand what's wrong with Holden, and     he certainly doesn't know how to help him

Sally Hayes

Sally Hayes is a pretty, friendly, loud girl who likes to eat ice cream, see matinees, and show off her cute butt in "one of those little skirts" Sally is a little annoying, “stupid”. Holden is sexually attracted to her. 

Holden has known her and dated her for a long time. Holden doesn't seem to enjoy talking to Sally or being in her company very much, but he enjoys having her on his arm and making out with her.

Holden is not impressed by Sally’s popularity as much as he is annoyed by it.


Jane Gallagher

She is extremely important to Holden, because she is one of the few girls whom he both respects and finds attractive.

for Holden's relationship with Jane, it's really, really complicated, they hold hands, they sit close to each other.

she’s “fond of all athletic sports”, she’s “muckle-mouthed”; she’s “always reading, and she read very good books”, and she “wouldn’t take her kings out of the back row” when she played checkers”.

Holden's inability to reach out to Jane despite his feelings is a big reminder of his passivity and indecision.