Holden Caulfield's Journey

Both Holden Caulfield from J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Huckleberry Finn from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are the main protagonists of their respective texts. Both Caulfield and Huck undertake a journey in their text, in which the character learns from their experiences and meet new people, who alter their outlook on life. Both these characters are still not mature, and this is shown throughout the two books, but the boys have to mature soon, as they are becoming adults. The way in which the boys undertake the journey means they do so without proper guidance, which causes them to make their own judgments, causing the two protagonists to make mistakes. The characters have their internal struggles within themselves

During Catcher, the whole story is set as a first person recount from the view of Holden Caulfield, but during this recount, there are some small instances of Holden thinking of his life as a child. The recount is from Holden’s point of view as he is obtaining psychiatric help, after he has been found to have mental issues. The majority of these small flashback moments during the text are about Holden’s younger brother Allie, who passed away with Leukemia when Holden was a few years younger. Holden holds strong and happy memories of his younger brother’s life, and during this extended flashback, he tells the author about his brother, and although Allie does not take part within the story, the audience learns lots about him. Holden is very much traumatised by the death of his younger brother, and this traumatic event has helped in making Caulfield the socially awkward person that he is during the recount. Similarly, Huck has flashbacks within his journey; however, there are much less flashbacks than there were in Catcher. When Huck decides to write the letter about how he now felt “clean for the first time” when discussing the way that he helped out and befriended Jim. Within this short flashback, Huck remembers all the good times that he had spent with Jim, and how they evolved from strangers to good friends. After spending so much time with Jim, Huck begins to

As Holden thinks about his older brother D.B. he cannot think of any other way to describe his brother other than calling him a ‘prostitute’ for moving away to Hollywood. As Salinger writes Caulfield from this point of view, the readers of the novel are able to understand some of the more complex feelings that Caulfield has towards others, without him having to discuss it towards other people. As Caulfield narrates the book, you understand more so about his genuine feelings and thoughts about those around him. Similarly, Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of Huck, allowing for comparable thoughts and opinions to be shared with the reader, without Huck discussing these points with others around him. Huck is much less judgmental of those around him, although he also disagrees with the main body of society like Caulfield, Huck does not scrutinize others around him as much. Although Huck finds himself disagreeing with many of society’s rules and regulations, he doesn 't condemn them, such as the issue of slavery, Huck is well aware that everyone else is for it, but he doesn 't want to stand for it, as he realises that the slaves are indeed people as much as he is, but he doesn 't