Comparing Catcher In The Rye And The Kite Runner

Superior Essays
Experiencing loss, and how it indefinitely defines us

Our losses define us as much as our possessions and the environments around us do. Loss can spur on one’s drive to change and redefine themselves, and also holds the power to halt time for said individual. Childhood and early adulthood are the years where worlds begin to change, and oftentimes loss is experienced for the first time. There are novels dedicated to this time in one’s life, the genre called “coming of age.” The Catcher in The Rye and The Kite Runner are some of the most classic books from this genre. Outlining the challenges that teenagers face throughout the toughest times in their lives, one of the most common themes in such stories is loss.

In “The Catcher in the Rye”, the most famous symbol is Holden’s red hunting hat. Holden buys this hat right after losing all of the fencing team’s equipment on the subway. Although buying this hat, was purely on a whim, it represents Holden’s values. It can be seen that Holden’s hat represents how he wishes to keep his individuality and uniqueness that he believes comes with being a child, as he believes adults are “phony” and the all the same. It is also refreshing to see how Holden loves this hat so much.
…show more content…
The events of The Catcher In the Rye begin at Pencey School, and then go to New York, where Holden stays for a weekend before heading home. At the end of the novel, it is shown that Holden has been writing from a mental institution. Despite living in a comfortable home and having a caring family and upbringing, Holden has a hard time coping with his brother Allie’s death, and spirals out of control. Whenever the subject of Allie comes up in the novel, Holden rambles about his younger brother, obsessing over him. “They were going to have [him] psychoanalyzed and all, because [he] broke all the windows in the garage” (Salinger, 50) on the night that Allie

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Holden’s red hunting hat is one of the biggest symbols in The Catcher in the Rye. This hat symbolizes how Holden is special and different to everyone else. The red hunting hat is very important to Holden in the book, he takes it everywhere with him and doesn’t let anyone borrow it. Stradlater would ask Holden if he could borrow the red hunting hat but Holden wouldn’t allow him to take it because he was very defensive about something happening to the hat.…

    • 457 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    “Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.” This quote is three demands of fiction writing. When following the three demands of fiction, an author get very interested in his/her work. “Make them wait” is a factor in creating interest in both novels Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies. The Purpose of this essay is to explain how making the readers wait will help create interest in the novels Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies.…

    • 120 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    J.D. Salinger’s character, Holden Caulfield, in the controversial novel, Catcher in the Rye, struggles with alienation, drugs, and alcohol due to his tragic past. Growing up, Holden lived a pretty normal life, until his brother’s tragic death. His brother, Allie, even though he was younger than Holden, was Holden’s inspiration in life. When Holden discovered that Allie was dead, he slept in the garage, and at one point during that night, Holden managed to break all of the windows in his garage out of complete and utter sorrow. The reader first gets introduced to Allie on pages 38 and 39, where instead of doing Stradlater’s homework, Holden remembers Allie and reflects on his life.…

    • 670 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Adolescents all have their own ways of transitioning into adults. In one way or another, we all lose our childhood innocence, whether we like it or not. Many people wonder what this stage in life may be called. ‘’Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The certain age at which this transition takes place changes in society, as does the nature of the change.”…

    • 222 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One of these items that plays a big role in the book is Holden’s red hunting hat. Where ever he goes he always has his hat. In chapter six of the book, after Holden gets in a fight he loses his hat. Holden says, “I couldn’t find my goddam hunting hat anywhere. Finally I found it.…

    • 1144 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Catcher in the Rye is not as serious of a book as A Child Called “It” is, but Holden does face some struggles, such as personal relationships. Holden has no real friends. When he was kicked out of his school, Pencey Prep, he had no one to say goodbye to. Also, Holden lost his younger brother Allie to cancer just a few years before. From what I could tell, they were very close.…

    • 1007 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After, Holden talks to someone he usually decides that a person is a phony unless they are a child. Whatever he wants from people he’s not getting it and this makes him bitter and lonely. The main idea of “The Catcher in the Rye” is that growing up sucks, because you become a phony, and the world around you is not an easy place to live, also loneliness and oblivion are waiting for you. So you need to learn how to deal with them while trying to understand something or else you’ll go mad.…

    • 1580 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger uses various examples of symbolism throughout the novel to let the readers into the mind of Holden Caulfield. The red hunting hat stands for Holden's individuality and independence because he believes everyone is phony, he hates being the same as everyone else, and wants to stand out. Holden is told he needs some form of help and by the end of the book, he finds it. Another factor that plays why Holden wears the red hunting hat is because, the color of the hat reminds Holden of Allie’s red hair. While Holden goes through his adventures he wears it for himself and he feels like himself for a change, wearing it; he’s hunting for truth, and he wears it like a catcher.…

    • 971 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One of the many symbols in “The Catcher in the Rye” is the eminent Red Hunting Hat. Holden first tells us about it when he returned from the New York Fencing Tournament where he had lost all of the equipment and became flustered on the subway. The Hat symbol is in his own way to try to make himself unique and not conform to the society that we live in or trying to not grow up partially because of his fear of adulthood and the next journey that will determine his be the majority of his life. He is scared of growing up and so he puts this hat on to try to distance himself from those who have or are about to grow into adulthood.…

    • 203 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The transition from childhood to adulthood is one of the hardest things a person has to do in their life. Everyone has made transitions in life that can be challenging. This topic is very popular in literature, because everyone can relate to it. This topic is found in the following, “The Catcher in the Rye” and “Peter Pan.” The main character of Peter in “Peter Pan” and Holden from “The Catcher in the Rye” are reluctant to take on the responsibilities of the adult world, and are unprepared to leave their childhood behind.…

    • 585 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    However, all along, it is ironic that he pushes society away, yet he continues to embrace those he cares about. Many symbols like his red hunting hat, the museum, and the ducks have erased his alienation and caused him to be more open to society. Holden’s red hunting hat symbolizes idiosyncrasy and distinctiveness. With this hat, he longs to be different from the people around him, especially when he is around people he doesn’t know. It also represents isolation versus companionship because he searches for isolation while wearing the hat, yet when he’s around his friends and teachers, he has companions and doesn’t wear the hat.…

    • 1379 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Eventually he goes home with her, where he belongs. The title, The Catcher in the Rye, refers to Holden wanting to be a catcher in the rye. It shows his compassion for children. It hints that maybe he never grew up and is still in a childlike mentality. He wants to keep all children safe the way he could not protect Allie from dying, but he wants to protect all other children from that same fate.…

    • 852 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    ‘’I felt so lonesome, all of the sudden. I almost wished I was dead,’’ a quote from the classic novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger which relates to how some teens felt at one point in their life. The novel was published to attract adult readers and has become popular for its themes, motifs, and connections an individual has with the main character, Holden Caulfield. We tend to feel a connection to the struggles of Holden Caulfield as we put ourselves in his shoes and see life through his perspective. The book is still pertinent due to Holden facing challenges such as loneliness and the inability to make a connection to make with a purpose thus the readers see themselves in Holden.…

    • 991 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Novel Analysis Set in two opposite time periods, these two books are as alike as they are different. It is easy to perceive that both novels, The Catcher in the Rye and Their Eyes Were Watching God, follow a noticeable pattern involving dialect, writing style, and theme. The novels address a clear theme of sexuality in two growing characters, as they explain their stories and lives throughout the course of the book’s journey. Both books take a very serious and stylistic approach to the topics of dialect and writing style. It is noticeable in the first few pages of both that the authors have clear intentions of creating a novel that is not only sound and verbose, but shapes the language around the characters and the world.…

    • 1177 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Mesmerized by the internal need to preserve the innocence in the world around him, Holden ventures off on a life-changing journey to grasp the unattainable, the need to prevent children from maturing. With the unfortunate past events in his life guiding the way, Holden embarks on a mission to prove to the world that he can make his inflated dream a reality by protecting the youth from the impurities of adulthood. Being the catcher in the rye is more than just a job that Holden wants; it is the occupation he needs in his life to play his part. The heroic deeds Holden implicates into his voyage throughout the novel proves his valor, but he is stricken by an incognizant mentality, steering him away from his objective, and down the treacherous…

    • 2253 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Great Essays