The Catcher in the Rye

Holden heads to Mr. Antolini’s house and Mr. Antolini greets him in his bathrobe with a highball in his hand. Mrs. Antolini is in the kitchen making coffee, and the couple yells back and forth. Holden finds them funny—Mrs. Antolini is a good bit older and rich, and they always seem to be yelling at each other from separate rooms.

Antolini and Holden sit down, and they begin talking about why Holden was kicked out of Pencey. Holden tells Antolini about his Oral Expression class; he failed it in part because he didn’t like that students would yell out “Digression!” when anyone presenting got off topic. For Holden, the digressions were often the most interesting part, which he illustrates by telling a story of one student, Richard Kinsella, who started talking about his family farm but became more interested in talking about his uncle’s polio. For Holden, it was more important that Kinsella was interested in what he was talking about than it was for him to stay on topic.

Antolini listens but says that there’s a time and a place for everything, and that sometimes you have to stay on topic. He then tells Holden about his worry: that Holden is “riding for some kind of terrible, terrible fall” (242).