Huck Vs Holden Essay Research Paper

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

Cle

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