In this crucial chapter, Salinger uses Phoebe's concern to elicit, from Holden, the dominating metaphor of the novel as well as its title. He sets this up with the tragic, moving story of a courageous innocent, James Castle.
Holden is confused throughout the novel. His thoughts drift. He tends to digress. Some of the most effective parts of the novel are Holden's digressions. An excellent example is the James Castle memory. Castle was a skinny, quiet, weak-looking schoolmate of Holden's at Elkton Hills. He had amazing resolve. One day, James voiced an opinion that an arrogant ruffian named Phil Stabile was "conceited," which he was. When word got back to Stabile, he and several cohorts locked Castle in his room and did unspeakable things to him, trying to get James to take back his comment, but James refused. To escape, he jumped out the window to his death. At the time of his death, Castle was wearing a turtleneck sweater that Holden had loaned him for a planned outing with a visitor.
The significance of James Castle's brave though ill-considered and tragic death is that it strikes home, once more, Holden's concern about protecting innocence. Holden says that he hardly knew James, but he feels an apparent closeness, perhaps symbolized by the fact that Castle died in Holden's sweater. Holden mentions that the two were linked alphabetically at roll call: "Cabel, R., Cabel, W., Castle, Caulfield." We can imagine the sensitive Holden's reaction the first time the roll was called without James' name. Some critics want to make something more of Castle's martyrdom, noting that he shares initials with another classic martyr, Jesus Christ, although that seems a stretch. It's enough that life's cruel side took another innocent victim, and Holden would like to do what he can to stop that.
