J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye Compared to Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn
             All famous American authors have written novels using a variety of characters, plots, and settings to illustrate important themes. Throughout literary history many of the same themes have been stressed in different novels. In J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, each author writes about the common theme of coming of age. The two novels were written more than half a century apart about two boys who seem like complete opposites, yet they bear striking resemblances to each other. Each author wrote his book depicting settings from his own past and based the plots on personal experiences. While the two novels are in different times and places, they have remarkably similar characters, plots, and themes.
             To completely understand the two novels, it is necessary to know about each author's background and how he got the ideas to write them. J. D. Salinger was born on January 1, 1919 in New York City. His father was a Jewish importer, his mother a Scott-Irish housewife, and he had one older sister. His parents were divorced in September 1947 before he began his career as an author. He grew up in Manhattan and attended public school until he was enrolled in Valley Forge Military Academy, where he had trouble adjusting. Later he attended New York University, Ursinus College, and Columbia University. Before he became a writer he worked as an entertainer on a Swedish cruise ship in the Caribbean and had a four-year military career as a staff sergeant in World War II ("Salinger" CA 332-334).
             Salinger began writing popularly in the late 1940's and 50's in the Post-Modernist period. Authors of this period showed despair, paranoia, and irrational violence due to threatening implications of the world after WWII. In this era, Salinger wrote his most creative ...