Analysis Of Jaycee Lee Dugard's A Stolen Life

On June 10, 1991 an innocent eleven year old girl, Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped and wouldn’t be able to reunite with her family for a long and brutal eighteen years. While being confined in the backyard of her captors, Phillip and Nancy Garrido, she would be fed endless lies, raped repeatedly, and eventually become impregnated twice. During the time she was held against her own will, she had documented her story about the loneliness, depression, and fear she had to face while growing up in the disturbing circumstances she was put under. The trauma she went through and still has to deal with to this day, is immeasurable. Being stripped of her innocence at a young age, she had to learn quickly to deal with the evilness and find hope in an

Shortly after being found, Dugard had written a memoir about her abduction entitled, “A Stolen Life”. While taking readers on a journey through her twisted and brainwashing eighteen years, she explains that everyone has their own struggle in life, such as her struggle in the loss of her innocence. The book, “The Catcher in the Rye” aligns with Dugard’s story perfectly as it brings to light that childhood innocence should be kept safe and untouched. As Dugard publically talks about her book, she states on Hollywood Reporter that, “‘I 'm also writing my story in the hopes that it will be of help to someone going through, hopefully not similar conditions, but facing a difficult situation of their own -- whatever it may be.’" (Lewis) It’s apparent that Dugard realizes that everyone has their own story and although they might not be put under the same conditions, almost everyone has an experience in which they have to overcome. The protagonist, Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye”, relates identically to this message as he had to grow up quickly because he had to witness the death of his younger brother,

Holden Caulfield, the main character sees this as an essential which relates to his struggle to grow up and how his relationships are affected by it. Salinger uses unfortunate circumstances of Holden’s life to depict that he is a mentally and emotionally unstable individual who is looking for the innocence he once had as a child. As Holden repeatedly brings up situations that has taken place in his life it offers the reader insight on the grief and pain that Holden carries inside. An example of this is when Holden’s younger sister, Phoebe challenges Holden to tell her one thing that he likes, all he can come up with is his younger brother Allie who sadly died of Leukemia. When Phoebe tries to snap Holden into reality that Allie is no longer around, he immediately gets defensive saying, “‘I know he’s dead! Don’t you think I know that? I can still like him, though, can 't I? Just because somebody’s dead, you don’t just stop liking them, for God’s sake-especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that’re alive and all.” (143) The author uses Holden’s desperate voice to show the reader the despair he feels from losing his brother and how its troublesome for him to cope with the pain. More often than not, he is bringing him up in a way to exemplify Allie as this amazing individual who he admires. By Holden constantly