Holden Caulfield recalls the events of a long weekend, shortly before the previous year's Christmas. It all starts at Pencey Preparatory Academy, a boarding school in Pennsylvania, where he has been expelled after failing all his classes, except English. Making matters worse, he loses the fencing team's equipment on the subway, causing them to forfeit a match in New York.
Later, Holden agrees to write an English composition for his roommate, Ward Stradlater, who is heading out on a date. He is soon distressed to learn that Stradlater's date is Jane Gallagher, with whom Holden has been infatuated. When Stradlater returns, hours later, he fails to appreciate the deeply personal composition Holden has written for him about the baseball glove of Holden's late brother, Allie, who died from leukemia years earlier, and refuses to say whether he had sex with Jane. Enraged, Holden punches and insults him, but Stradlater easily wins the fight, leaving him lying on the floor with a bloody nose. Fed up with the "phonies" at Pencey Prep, Holden decides to catch a train to New York, planning to stay away from his home until Wednesday, when his parents will have received notification of his expulsion.
In a taxi, he asks the driver whether the ducks in the Central Park lagoon migrate during winter, but the man barely responds. Holden checks into the Edmont Hotel, where he spends an evening dancing with three tourists at the lounge until he tires of them. Following a disappointing visit to a nightclub, an angst-ridden Holden agrees to have Sunny, a prostitute, visit his room. But when she enters and disrobes, Holden, a virgin, experiences a change of heart, saying he only wants to talk. Annoyed, she leaves, only to return with her pimp, Maurice, who demands more money (though Holden maintains he paid the right amount). Holden insults Maurice, Sunny takes money from Holden's wallet, and Maurice snaps his fingers on Holden's groin and punches him in the stomach. Afterward, Holden, imagining himself shot by Maurice, pictures murdering him with a pistol.
The next morning, Holden—increasingly depressed and desperate for personal connection—calls Sally Hayes, a familiar date (despite his characterization of her as "queen of all phonies"). They agree to meet that afternoon to attend a play at the Biltmore Theater. Meanwhile, Holden shops for a special record, "Little Shirley Beans," for his 10-year-old sister, Phoebe. After the play, Holden and Sally ice skate at Rockefeller Center, where Holden rants against society and frightens Sally. He invites her to run away with him that night to live in the New England wilderness, but she declines. The conversation sours, and the two part angrily.
He then meets his old classmate Carl Luce for drinks at the Wicker Bar. But Holden annoys Carl, whom he suspects of being gay, by unrelentingly questioning him about his sex life. Luce says Holden should see a psychiatrist to understand himself better. Afterwards, Holden gets drunk, awkwardly flirts with several adults, calls an icy Sally, and, now exhausted and broke, wanders to Central Park to investigate the ducks. En route, he accidentally breaks Phoebe's record.
Nostalgic to see her, he heads home, sneaking into his parents' apartment while they are out and awakening her. Though happy to see him, Phoebe quickly guesses he has been expelled and chastises him for his general aimlessness and disdain. When she asks if he cares about anything, Holden shares a fantasy (based on a mishearing of Robert Burns's Comin' Through the Rye), in which he imagines himself saving children running through a field of rye by catching them before they fall off a nearby cliff. Phoebe points out that the actual poem says, "when a body meet a body, comin' through the rye." Holden breaks down in tears, and his sister tries to console him.
As his parents return home, he slips out and visits his former, much-admired, now married English teacher, Mr. Antolini, who expresses concern that Holden is headed for "a terrible fall." Mr. Antolini advises him to begin applying himself and provides him with a place to sleep. Holden is upset when he awakens to find Mr. Antolini patting his head, which he interprets as a sexual advance. He leaves and spends the rest of the night in a train-waiting room at Grand Central Terminal, sinking deeper into despair. Most of the morning, he wanders Fifth Avenue.
Losing hope of ever finding meaningful connection in the city, he decides to head out West to live as a deaf-mute gas station attendant in a log cabin. He arranges to see Phoebe at lunchtime to explain his plan and say goodbye. When they meet up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she arrives with a suitcase and asks to go with him. Holden refuses, which upsets Phoebe. He tries to cheer her by allowing her to skip school at the Central Park Zoo, but she remains angry. They eventually reach the carousel, where they reconcile after he buys her a ticket. The sight of her riding the carousel fills him with happiness.
He alludes to encountering his parents that night and "getting sick," mentioning that he will be attending another academy in September. But he is reluctant to say more because talk of school has made him miss his former classmates.
