Sally Hayes

Sally is like a lot of girls for Holden. Sure, she's attractive, but ultimately she's kind of shallow. Holden is lonely and want physical affection, and this means he puts up with matinees and ice skating, just so he can make out with Sally in a cab and profess his love.

Holden is under the impression that the world is full of Sally Hayeses. This is depressing. What bothers him so much about her is that she's completely phony. She's a social climber. She thinks she's hot stuff. She drops names.

But wait a minute. Isn't Holden being a little harsh? Yes. If you look at it in the right light, Sally's just your average teenage girl. Sure, she wants to go ice skating just to show off her buns, but she's seventeen. And the name-dropping? The social climbing? You could argue that Holden's just exaggerating, as he does with every other person he meets. Ever.

So the question of how to interpret Sally is really the question of how to interpret everyone Holden meets and dislikes – from Ackley to Stradlater to Luce to the three women in the Lavender Room. Either we agree with Holden and judge everyone to be moronic, or we realize that everyone – including Holden, including ourselves – is human and therefore flawed.