Holden Caulfield, the first-person narrator and protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye, is living in Southern California, in an unspecified institution, probably a private hospital or retreat, while he recalls the events that led up to his moving there. In that regard, the institution can be considered one of the novel’s settings. On page 1, Holden refers to the "crumby place" that "isn’t too far . . . [from] Hollywood" where his brother lives; he is staying there in order to "take it easy" after the "madman stuff" that had happened around Christmas. On the novel’s last page, he mentions a "psychoanalyst."
Within Holden’s narrative, one main setting is the prep school from which he has just been expelled as the novel begins. On page 2, he names Pencey Prep, which is in Agerstown, Pennsylvania.
Several other settings are located within Manhattan, the borough of New York City where Holden lives with his family. In New York, there several settings than can be considered primary, including the Caulfield family’s apartment, where Holden converses with his sister, Phoebe; a hotel, where he has an encounter with a prostitute and a pimp; the American Museum of Natural History; and the swings in Central Park.
When Holden arrives in Manhattan in chapter 9, he asks the driver to take him to the Edmont Hotel, where he assigned a “very crumby room.” In chapter 16, Holden visits Central Park, looking for Phoebe. Not finding her there, he heads for the museum but then decides not to enter. Holden returns to the park in chapter 20, visiting the lake in search of ducks, but finds it "partly frozen" and without ducks. At the chapter’s end, he finally goes home; the next chapter is set at his house. Parts of chapter 25 take place in the museum and the park, especially the carousel.
Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, takes place over three days, and the action of the story takes place at Pencey Prep School and on the streets of New York. Hence, these two places are key components of the physical setting, but the third, the historical setting, is of equal significance to the story, as setting consists of both time and place. The story is set in the 1950s, a time when there was a push to adopt mainstream ideals, to obtain an education, pursue a career, and adopt the attitudes and values of a nation of consumers. Holden however, is a non-conformist. He rebels from society, and he bucks its traditions and expectations.
Pencey Prep demands conformity, and because Holden Caulfield shuns it, he refuses to play by the rules. He gets kicked out of school for failing his classes, although it is Holden’s desire to get kicked out. He hates everything the school stands for, and so he finds most everything about it annoying. Holden believes he can escape these things that he hates by leaving the school and going to a different environment. On the streets of New York, however, he encounters more things he dislikes, and for much the same reasons, and he continues his attempt to escape these things by moving from place to place within New York City. What he finds is that every place is the same because he cannot escape his feelings. One of the novel’s most famous quotes seems to capture this idea.
"What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of good-by. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t you feel even worse” (4).
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