Consider The Catcher in the Rye as a tragedy.

To delay confronting his parents about his expulsion, Holden decides to loiter in New York City. While on a train to Manhattan, he meets the mother of an unpopular student he knew at Pencey and purposely embellishes her son’s reputation to spare her feeling. Once in the City, he ventures into an adult life: visiting a Jazz club, asking for drinks and trying unsuccessfully to lose virginity to a prostitute.

Dissatisfied he wanders through the Central Park to see what the ducks are doing. Keep to find them, he pokes in the Grass and nearly falls in the water. Shivering and apprehensive of getting Pneumonia, he sneaks into his parent’s apartment to see his dear sister, Phobe.