In this chap­ter of “The Catch­er in the Rye,” the pro­tag­o­nist reflects on his emo­tion­al tur­moil fol­low­ing a vis­it from a pros­ti­tute named Sun­ny and her asso­ciate, Mau­rice. After Old Sun­ny leaves, he finds him­self feel­ing deeply depressed and begins to con­verse aloud with his deceased broth­er, Allie, rem­i­nisc­ing about their child­hood in Maine. He recalls an inci­dent where he and a friend, Bob­by Fal­lon, planned to ride their bikes to Lake Sede­bego, and Allie want­ed to join, but he was told he could­n’t because he was too young. This moment haunts him, illus­trat­ing his feel­ings of guilt and long­ing for con­nec­tion with Allie.

As he attempts to pray, he admits to being some­what of an athe­ist, express­ing dis­dain for the Dis­ci­ples in the Bible, whom he finds frus­trat­ing and unable to sup­port Jesus dur­ing His life. Dur­ing these reflec­tions, he feels a sense of alien­ation from tra­di­tion­al reli­gious beliefs, express­ing a pref­er­ence for the more chaot­ic and mis­un­der­stood char­ac­ters in scrip­ture.

Sud­den­ly, his soli­tude is inter­rupt­ed by a knock at the door, reveal­ing Sun­ny and Mau­rice demand­ing mon­ey for her ser­vices. They ini­tial­ly claim that ten dol­lars is owed, despite Holden’s protests that he already paid five. The con­fronta­tion esca­lates as Mau­rice becomes aggres­sive, and Hold­en, still in his paja­mas, feels par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble. He attempts to assert him­self but is quick­ly over­pow­ered, lead­ing Mau­rice to phys­i­cal­ly intim­i­date him when Sun­ny sug­gests tak­ing his wal­let.

Hold­en expe­ri­ences a mix of fear and anger, even­tu­al­ly cry­ing when they take the five dol­lars he orig­i­nal­ly thought was his. As Mau­rice’s actions inten­si­fy, he feels over­matched, result­ing in a punch that leaves him on the floor, con­tem­plat­ing his mor­tal­i­ty and imag­in­ing an elab­o­rate revenge against Mau­rice for the humil­i­a­tion. His thoughts shift to want­i­ng to escape his pain through sui­cide, reflect­ing a desire for a dig­ni­fied, unob­tru­sive death rather than being seen in a state of despair by oth­ers.

Through­out this tur­moil, his emo­tion­al state is exac­er­bat­ed by the events, leav­ing him deeply unset­tled and ques­tion­ing his exis­tence while bat­tling feel­ings of help­less­ness and hope­less­ness .