Conrad Vs Holden Essay Research Paper Conrad

Conrad Vs. Holden Essay, Research Paper

Conrad Vs. Holden

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 former principal at Elkton Hills, a former school he attended. He calls Old Haas a phony and says that he put on a false image when he spoke to parents and this drove Holden crazy. Holden states It makes me so depressed, I go crazy (Salinger, pg. 14). Holden can t stand the fact that people put on fake images. He doesn t like phony people but wants a society in which everyone expresses himself or herself truthfully. However, even though Holden has a negative point of view of the society and calls everyone a phony, he himself is a phony because he also puts on a fake image when he meets someone he likes. An example of this occurs when he takes off from Pencey and is taking the subway to downtown New York. There he meets a women who happens to be Ernest Morrow s, a student at Pencey, mother. When she asks him what his name was, Holden answers Rudolf Schmidt (Salinger, pg. 54). He did this because he didn t feel like telling her his whole life story. He says, I didn t feel like giving her my whole life history. Rudolf Schmidt was the name of the janitor of our dorm (Salinger, pg.55). This shows that Holden was dishonest with the people he liked. He then regrets and infers I liked her, though. I was beginning to feel sort of sorry I d told her my name was Rudolf Schmidt (Salinger, pg.56). On the other hand, Holden has a sensitive and innocent side. For instance, Holden buys Phoebe a record called Little Shirley Bean which was hard to find. He struggled to look for it all because he liked to see his sister, Phoebe happy, but he drops it and it breaks. He says I damn near cried, it made me feel terrible they weren t any good for anything, but I didn t feel like just throwing them away (Salinger, pg.154). This quote expresses Holden s sentimental feels and innocence. It tells the reader that Holden is close to Phoebe and regrets dropping the record. Similarly, Conrad s personality is delirious, but also innocent and sensitive. Conrad reacts to anything said to him about his deceased brother, Jordan, or about him. For example, Conrad overhears Stillman, one of his teammates on the swimming team, say He (Conrad) s a flake (Guest, pg.76). This upsets Conrad and builds up anger inside him. Moreover, Conrad had a sensitive side. For example, he shows his sympathy towards his girlfriend, Jeannine, when she tells him a depressing story about her life. He hold her tenderly again him (Guest, pg.231) narrator says. This gesture shown by Conrad towards his girlfriend explains his feeling toward her and her pain. On the other hand, Conrad doesn t express his emotions as easily as Holden. He keeps it inside him so people don t look at him as if he was crazy. For instance, Stillman, a friend, says, Hey, there s Pratt lemme out. I need a jump . nice ass (Guest, pg.16). This quote is referring to Conrad s yet to become girlfriend, Jeannine. Even when Stillman makes this annoying comment about Jeannine, Conrad keeps the anger to himself. In addition, Conrad had trouble making decisions for him. For example, the narrator narrates, Too many details crowd his mind. Brush his teeth first. Wash his face. What pants should he wear. What shirt. (Guest, pg.2). This shows he s confused and has an unstable mind. He eventually settles down his mind, by learning from his problems, such as being able to cope with his brother, Jordan s death.

Holden and Conrad con also be compared in terms of family relationships. The family relationships change, after the loss of their siblings. For instance, Holden does