Similarities And Differences Between Catcher In The Rye And Jim

Both Holden Caulfield of “Catcher in the Rye” and Jim Stark from “Rebel Without a Cause” are young, male characters growing up in the late 1950’s. Holden is someone who doesn’t like a lot of people, he’s always depressed and has a really hard time facing his problems. Holden is also a coward in the way that he really doesn’t like to fight back or confront conflict. He’s the type of person who talks about people and thinks everyone is phony. Jim, on the other hand, is a confused teenager, throughout the movie he appears to be really angry at his parents for trying to solve every problem he gets into by moving around. He is always getting in trouble and moving around due to this. He also seems to want someone to help him do the right …show more content…
Similarities include school and friendships and differences include conformity and romantic relationships. One way that Holden and Jim are similar relates to their school life, and friendships. Holden and Jim are similar in this aspect because both have a school life that is pretty much not long lasting. In the book, Holden tells us all about the different schools he’s been to due to failing most of his classes or getting kicked out for other things. Because of that Holden keeps moving schools, which is why he has such a long history of stories from all the different schools he’s been to. Similarly, Jim, in the movie shows that he’s had a lot of, school changes too for getting into fights. Jim also doesn’t really care about school like Holden because he confronts all his problems with violence without thinking about the consequences. Both Holden and Jim haven’t been settled in a school for too …show more content…
One way that Holden and Jim are different relates to conformity. Holden shows us throughout the book that he is a nonconformist. Throughout the book he shows us that he doesn’t want to live like everybody else. For example, Holden asks Sally to go live with him in a Cabin somewhere in Vermont to get away from everybody and avoid phony conversations. Clearly Holden doesn’t want to live close to society, he prefers to get away and live his life the way he wants to without pressure. On the other hand, Jim is a conformist. Jim shows us that he’s a conformist when he agrees to go to the cliff to drag race with Buzz just to prove to him that he isn’t a “chicken.” This shows that Jim does care about what other people think about him because he feels the need to go and prove them wrong. This is something a nonconformist wouldn 't do, they would do the opposite. They don 't care about what others think and don 't feel the need to go and prove people wrong. Another way that Holden and Jim are different relates to their romantic relationship life. In the book, Holden isn’t good with girls. For example when he goes out on a date with Sally, everything was going fine but in the end they have an argument and he insults Sally and makes her cry. Holden also shows this when he explains to us that his sex life sucks and he doesn 't really understand it. Furthermore, he tells us about Jane Gallagher, a friend