Huck Vs Holden Essay, Research Paper
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 works such as Catcher in the
Rye and Nine Stories. These books show the dilemma of people trying
to come to terms with either a self-created or contemporary hell with a
common theme of coming of age or loss of innocence. Recurring
incidents of adulterated emotion can be seen in many of Salinger s
works, and he believes that is the history of human trouble and the
poetry of love which explains many controversial events in his works
( Salinger CA 334-335). In most of his works, it is obvious that
Salinger wrote about his background and personal experiences
although he never dealt with adultery. Most of his fictional characters
grew up in New York and were of mixed parentage. For example,
Holden Caulfield, the main character in The Catcher in the Rye, grew
up in New York City and had a hard time adjusting to life at school.
Also, Pencey Prep, the school Holden went to, was modeled from
Valley Forge Military Academy ( Salinger CA 333). Salinger s work
was very controversial, especially his characters and his language.
Some critics concentrate on his characters, saying that the heroes in
his works are self-righteous and self-centered misfits, indicating
immaturity in Salinger s vision. He also brought back the concept of
vernacular dialect and idiomatic phrases previously unused in
American literature but popular in everyday speech. Some critics
object to his use of foul language, while others feel that his use of
speech is a brilliant technique to help shape his theme. James Miller
says he is one of the most controversial writers yet, and he is greeted
with praise as well as condemnation ( Salinger CLC Vol. 1 299).
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri in 1835 to
Marshall Clemens and Jane Lampton. He grew up in Hannibal,
Missouri, a frontier town, where he got his richest sources for his
writing. Between 1853 and 1857 he was a journeyman printer in St.
Louis, New York City, Philadelphia, and other places around the U.S. In
1857 he went to the Mississippi River, became a river pilot s
apprentice and won his license shortly afterward. He piloted until 1861
when the Civil War broke out, and he served in the Confederacy for a
short period of time. In 1862 he was released from the army and
became a reporter for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise in Nevada
where he discovered that he was quite the humorist. He took the pen
name Mark Twain from riverboat terms in 1863 and worked for
newspapers until 1869 when some of his stories were collected,
revised, and published. In 1870 he married Olivia Langdon and began
writing books and novels. He wrote many classics such as The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and
The Gilded Age. However, he went bankrupt in 1894 because of bad
investments, and became pessimistic in his work ( Samuel Langhorne
Clemens 1-2). Salinger and Twain lead similar lives and used similar
techniques in writing style. Salinger s Catcher in the Rye and Twain s
Huckleberry Finn have much in common just as Salinger and Twain did
in their lives. Both novels use a first person narrator, vernacular, and
autobiographical settings, but the most significant similarity is the
common theme of coming of age or loss of innocence. Both main
characters are adolescents, runaways from society, seeking
independence, growth, and stability in their lives (Lamazoff 1).
Published in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye was the first of Salinger s
works to catch the reader s eye and help him gain popularity. Holden
Caulfield s rebellion against fake people or phonies shows the
rejection of some adult qualities, leading into the major themes:
innocence and coming of age ( Salinger CA 332). The plot is not very
extravagant, but Salinger used many other aspects to convey his point.
After Holden was kicked out of Pencey Prep he was planning to head
west and start over, but he first went to New York City to say good-bye
to his little sister, Phoebe. During his time in New York he participated
in humorous events involving an acquaintance, some nuns, a
prostitute, a cross dresser, and an admired teacher each with their
own message helping Holden realize his false dreams. Hol
wanted to be like a catcher in the rye to keep all the children,
symbolizing innocence, from falling off of the cliff, symbolizing coming
of age. This is a gesture of selfless love coming from his confusion and
grief ( Salinger CA 336). Holden is a double-minded, self-critical,
frantic adolescent making his first movement into the adult world, and
he realizes that the values of the world can be judged as stated by
David Galloway ( Salinger CLC Vol. 3 445). Frederick Gwynn and
Joseph Boltner believe Holden s quest was to preserve an innocence
that is in danger of disappearing. This is the innocence of a spotless
childhood in the ordinary involvements of life. First he rebelled against
society, then he was inspired by his honesty against phoniness, and he
finally realized what a small role he actually played ( Salinger CLC
Vol. 1 295). Harvey Breit says Holden figured this out in the climax of
the novel when Phoebe, Holden s ten-year-old sister that he wants to
keep pure and innocent, was riding the carousel in Central Park. He
watched in the rain and his dream shattered because he could do
nothing to prevent any coming of age, and at this is the time Holden
passed into adulthood ( Salinger CLC Vol. 56 318). The irony of this
story is that Holden could not even prevent himself from falling off
the cliff much less save others ( Salinger CA 336). Mark Twain s
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published in 1884 shortly
almost ten years after its prelude The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
( Samuel Langhorne Clemens 2). The setting of this novel is on the
Mississippi River, where Twain once lived, and the plot of this story is
like the rural version of Catcher in the Rye. Huck escaped from his
father and took a raft down the river along with a black slave, Jim,
trying to reach their freedom. Along this journey Huck and Jim
encountered many controversies such as the Grangerford/Shepherdson
feud, the king and duke, and the events on the Phelps farm. Walter
Allen wrote that much like Holden Caulfield, first Huck rebelled against
his society, then he was inspired by his honesty against sham, and
finally he gained a sympathetic awareness of his melancholy role in
life. Huck s attitude toward coming of age was ambiguous; he
intervened in the activities of the adult world and made moral choices
that repudiated that world ( Salinger CLC Vol. 1 298). In John
Aldrigde s comparison he wrote that both books rely on the concept of
innocence to show how their main characters reach their coming of
age. In The Catcher in the Rye innocence is a compound of urban
intelligence, juvenile contempt, and New Yorker sentimentality. The
symbol of innocence in this book is the children of the world,
especially Phoebe, which are continuously challenged by phonies ,
profanity, and adult life. In this novel, innocence calls for genuineness
and sincerity in a dull and loveless world. In Huckleberry Finn,
innocence is a compound of frontier ignorance, juvenile delinquency,
and petty heroism. The symbols of innocence are the raft and the river.
The challenging factors of innocence in this book are thugs, thieves,
feuds, and other dangers on shore that call for narrow escapes. The
raft represents innocence because that is how Huck and Jim make
their narrow escapes from the dangers of the shore, and the river
because its time, faith, and continuity, move endlessly and dependably
beside and between the temporary problems of men. In Huck Finn,
innocence calls for escape from violence because innocence and the
world of violence are seriously and effectively opposed ( Salinger
CLC Vol. 56 323). When Huck headed down the river with Jim to seek
freedom, he was actually seeking a new home free from the injustices
of his old life. Just like Huck, Holden too was seeking a new home
where he could have a life without the pain and disillusionment that
comes with becoming involved with anything life has to offer. Both
Huck and Holden encountered tests for them to pass on their way to
adulthood. For Huck the tests were mostly physical, but the tests that
Holden had to overcome were primarily metaphorical dangers created
by the loss of individuality, accepted values, and self-reliant
intellectuality (Branch Mark Twain and J. D. Salinger 3). Not only
are the two books similar in their themes, but they also share other
common writing devices. They have similar comic irony, informal
language, picaresque structure, anti-phony themes, and both boys
represent the average American boy at different times (Branch
Salinger: A Critical and Personal Portrait 5). S. N. Behrman wrote
that Holden and Huck are neither comical, nor are they marked by
hatred or contempt of mankind; they just repudiate mankind s faults.
They always pay attention to what is happening whether involved or
not. The two novels are one-way journeys from holy innocence to the
enlightenment that the world offers. Both works are concerned with
the problems that people were facing at the times they were written.
And finally, they both have been repeatedly banned and restricted
because of the use of questionable language that people use in
everyday speech ( Salinger CLC Vol. 56 321). The Catcher in the Rye
and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have strikingly similar plots,
characters, and themes even though they were written in different
time periods and settings. Their primary similarity is the resemblance
between Huck and Holden as they lose their youthful innocence and
grow up. 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. Both
boys realize in the end that they play minor roles in life and loss of
innocence is inevitable in the emergence of adulthood. In J. D.
Salinger s The Catcher in the Rye and Mark Twain s The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn both authors stress the themes of coming of age
and loss of innocence to prove the point that everyone grows up and
passes into adulthood. They show that this is a natural and
unavoidable part of life.