Catcher in the Rye

             Holden ends up leaving Pencey that Saturday night instead of in a few days when the rest of the students leave. He simply cannot take the torture of his dorm and the people in it any longer, he feels so disconnected from the people there that he must escape. He decides to stay in a cheap hotel in New York and arrive at his house on the day that he is expected to return.
             What follows is Holden's journey through New York's social scene in search for approval as well as a release from the depression that he is beginning to slip into. The first night he attempts to call a girl that a friend introduced him to once. He is turned down by this girl on the phone and is left with an all too familiar sense of rejection. He then contemplates calling his ten year old sister Phoebe, who he adores, but decides not to because he is afraid of his parents picking up. .
             Once at his hotel he decides to go down to the nightclub and have a few drinks. This is one of many misadventures that Holden experiences on his search for human interaction. He is given a lousy table and refused to be served alcohol, but finds himself getting up enough courage to ask a pretty blonde to dance with him. He finds the blonde to be a great dancer but her and her friends to be quite boring and ignorant. He tries, however, to strike up a conversation with the group and when they get up to leave he fails in talking them into staying. Holden is left with their bill, though, and is left feeling .
             rejected. Throughout the rest of the night he finds himself going to a bar that his brother D.B. brought him to which, once again, he leaves feeling depressed after he turns down an offer to have a few drinks with an old friend of D.B.'s and her sailor companion. When he returns to the hotel his night reaches its ultimate low when he agrees to have a prostitute come to his room only to become too nervous to do anything. He tells the girl to leave and gives her five dollars, when her pimp returns wanting ten dollars Holden refuses him the money and is punched in the stomach.