Education, learning, and high school is something all teenagers have to deal with. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is about Holden Caulfield, a boy who repeatedly gets expelled from school. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie tells the story of Arnold Spirit Junior’s freshman year of high school where he chooses to leave the reservation for a better education. Education is often seen as a door to a brighter future, and some embrace this and others choose to ignore it. Holden and Junior differ in their opinions on school through how they see education and school. Sherman Alexie and J.D. Salinger display their character’s differences through how they view school, how much effort they put into their school
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They are full of ‘phonies’ or the “the more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has”(Salinger 4). He doesn’t say a single thing he likes about school. He is the opposite of Junior on this. Junior’s teacher, Mr. P, tells Junior that Indian students are “‘being taught … to give up’”(Alexie 42). When Junior goes off the reservation for school, he is not giving up; he is fighting against giving up. Junior views school, at least the white school, Reardan, as a hope of a better life. Holden and Junior are also in very different school setting. Holden is in a rich private school in the city, while Junior is in a farm town public school in the …show more content…
He doesn’t put school or education in very high regard, and Holden realizes that school could help him in life but he doesn’t seem to care. Junior knows school will lead to something. Upon getting to Reardan for the first time he acknowledges that “more than half of every graduating class went to college. Nobody in my [Junior’s] family had ever gone near a college”(Alexie 56). Junior is basically saying that school, that Reardan, will lead to college. He wants it to lead their because going to college would mean not giving up. Both characters acknowledge that school can be a gateway to bigger things but the difference is that Holden doesn’t care and Junior hangs to it like a
They are full of ‘phonies’ or the “the more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has”(Salinger 4). He doesn’t say a single thing he likes about school. He is the opposite of Junior on this. Junior’s teacher, Mr. P, tells Junior that Indian students are “‘being taught … to give up’”(Alexie 42). When Junior goes off the reservation for school, he is not giving up; he is fighting against giving up. Junior views school, at least the white school, Reardan, as a hope of a better life. Holden and Junior are also in very different school setting. Holden is in a rich private school in the city, while Junior is in a farm town public school in the …show more content…
He doesn’t put school or education in very high regard, and Holden realizes that school could help him in life but he doesn’t seem to care. Junior knows school will lead to something. Upon getting to Reardan for the first time he acknowledges that “more than half of every graduating class went to college. Nobody in my [Junior’s] family had ever gone near a college”(Alexie 56). Junior is basically saying that school, that Reardan, will lead to college. He wants it to lead their because going to college would mean not giving up. Both characters acknowledge that school can be a gateway to bigger things but the difference is that Holden doesn’t care and Junior hangs to it like a