Similarities Between Catcher In The Rye And Amelie

In one's life, it is essential to experience loneliness and happiness in order to gain experience and grow. These emotions are elicited through the relationships one holds with others, or lack thereof, and is influenced by their own context. The comparison between J. D Salinger’s 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye (CITR) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2001 French comedic romance film Amelie, facilitates the significance of context to one’s ability in forming relationships. The transition from post-war 1940’s American and encouragement of decolonisation to the twenty-first-century French reflexivity presents a change in public morals thus altering character development in texts.
However, both texts explore similar aspects of context and relationships, …show more content…
Generally, either a blunt or idealised version of context is presented. Both sides of this coin are represented when comparing The Catcher in the Rye to Amelie. CITR is set in post-World War II America where views of decolonisation, independence, were high. In the 1940’s the colonial empires prior to the First World War were dismantled. This is a time described by Stephen Schryer in Fantasy of the New Class as ‘the ideological and bureaucratic rigidity of the welfare state’, where the United States is moving towards independence. Holden visits New York where the notion of bureaucracy, conflicts with emerging independence. Commander Blop, referred to often as the ‘Navy guy’ and the personification of rigid bureaucracy, is introduced through colloquial imagery as ‘one of those guys that think they’re being a pansy if they don’t break around forty of your fingers when they shake hands with you’. He is trained to follow strict rules, conform and think what his officer’s want him to think. Context provides CITR with a blunt representation of the 1940’s America particularity at night where the beauty of the city is replaced with prostitution and ‘vomity kind of’ cabs. Holden hires a prostitute, from there discovers ‘she was around [his] age.’ The diminutive sentence illuminates the blunt and therefore the shocking realisation of underage prostitution. CITR encapsulates the reality of the underbelly of New York City. In …show more content…
CITR’s Holden views the world as cynical, filled with ‘phonies’. He is ultimately afraid of independence and adulthood. Living in a post-world-war America provides Holden reason to disapprove of adulthood, adults caused the wars he grew up in and with the change in political structure and introduction of decolonisation, he was afraid. ‘If you sat around there long enough… you got to hate everybody in the world,’ Holden’s use of elongated sentences and colloquial language captures his pessimistic attitude towards others, which ultimately led to his loss of friends and gain of depression. He dwelled in the past, using memories of childhood to comfort him. He doesn’t let anybody close to him, and when he does he states that the only thing he likes is Allie, his dead brother. ‘Just because somebody’s dead, you don’t just stop liking them – especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that’re alive and all.’ By dwelling in the past, and clinging to relationships that can’t grow he caused his own feelings of isolation and sadness. In contrast, Amelie realises after helping a man receive memories of his childhood, that she can do more in her life and move from a state of isolation and loneliness. A narrator captures her ‘strange feeling of absolute harmony’ as the camera follows Amelie’s movements as she crosses a bridge, leaving behind her