Getting over a traumatic experience can be troubling to anyone, especially when the experience deals with a close family member or friends. Whether the problem is feeling unloved by your parents, being rejected by your friends or even having suicidal thoughts, the result can be just as destructive as those results of Holden's problems from the Catcher in the Rye and Conrad's problems from Ordinary People. These two novels begin with a trigger accident that affects the mental health of these two characters. Their personality changes as well as, relationships, and conflicts arise. Conrad Jarrett from Ordinary People by Judith Guest can be compared to J.D. Salinger's, The Catcher in the Rye, in terms of character's personalities, relationships with their families, conflicts with fate and theme of escapism.
             The protagonist Holden from The Catcher in the Rye and the protagonist from Ordinary People can be compared in terms of their personalities. Holden is a psycho who has gone mad after losing his younger brother, Allie. He reacts to anything false said about his brother, like when Stradlater, a roommate of his at Pencey Prep School, said "For Chrissake, Holden. This is about a goddamn baseball glove" (Salinger, pg. 41). At this point Holden had written Stradlater a composition for his English class, but Stradlater rejected it. Holden angrily tore up the paper at once and trashed it. In addition, Holden believes most people put on a "plastic" image to hide their true image. For instance, he says "Old Haas went around shaking hands with everybody's parents when they drove up the school. He'd be charming as hell and all ... Except if some boy had little old funny-looking parent...Old Haas would just shake hands with them and give them a phony smile and then he'd go talk ... with somebody else's parent" (Salinger, pg. 14). Holden is talking bout Old Haas, a fo...