Huck and Holden
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, bare striking resemblances even though the authors wrote them almost 50 years apart. In particular, the two main characters, Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield, show strong similarities despite seeming like complete opposites. The main likenesses between the two boys shows up through the similarities in plot, the themes that they represent, and both characters strong relationship to the author of each novel. Through the plot, one can see that the characters had a similar journey even though they took place in different parts of the country. Both main characters share the qualities of being adolescents, runaways from society, and seek independence, growth and stability in their lives. In fact, the plot of Huckleberry Finn proves very much like a rural version Catcher in the Rye when looked at carefully. Both characters seek a new home where they could live without the pain that life has to offer. Huck and Holden both encountered tests for them to pass on their way to adulthood too. For Huck, the tests showed up as mostly physical, whereas Holden's tests came as more like metaphorical dangers created by his loss of accepted value
Both these novels opened the eyes of the American people to think past the ideals of society by showing society's many faults, and asked their readers to make their own beliefs. Despite the fact that their tests were different, one can clearly see that these boys had similar experiences throughout the book. Both novels' main characters represent the author's lives and many of the places and experiences come straight out of their lives. These two great novels, written nearly 50 years apart, show strong similarities particularly with regards to the two main characters, Huck and Holden. The characters also similarly reflect strongly their respective author's life, showing that just about the only thing that is not the same between them is the novel they represent. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, innocence shows up as frontier ignorance and petty heroism. Huck and Holden both had journeys with obstacles they needed to encounter and had to make a decision on how they were going to combine what society told them with their own thoughts, in order to live their lives the way they wanted. The boys also symbolize the same ideas, innocence and coming of age, with the same out come in the end; learning of the world's evil and nothing they can do can stop it. Salinger had a four-year military career as a staff sergeant in World War 2 and consequently he wrote about despair, paranoia, and violence. In 1861, after piloting, Twain served in the confederacy for a little while during the civil war. Both main characters represent the major theme of innocence and coming of age. Huck tries to escape injustice to gain freedom floating down the Mississippi River on his raft, and Holden tries to escape the phoniness he found in the adult world to gain a pleasant life. Without this important experience in his life, the book may not even exist so we can see how important each author's life was for the writing of these two classics.
Common topics in this essay:
Huck Holden,
Huckleberry Finn,
Holden Caulfield,
Mississippi River,
Catcher Rye,
World War,
Huckleberry Twain,
Holden Huck,
Mark Twain,
Military Academy,
main characters,
huckleberry finn,
coming age,
huck holden,
catcher rye,
adventures huckleberry,
mississippi river,
innocence coming age,
author's life,
holden caulfield,
innocence novel,
adventures huckleberry finn,
main characters represent,
theme coming age,
main characters huck,
|
Acceptance Essays
