Similarities Between Holden Caulfield And The Great Gatsby

Even with the amount of people that are “crazy about The Great Gatsby. Old Gatsby. Old sport,” is does not excuse the fact that he is a very disillusioned person, someone who discovers something that is not as good as they had believed it to be. Although both books, The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye have varying plots, their one similarity is that both characters, Jay Gatsby and Holden Caulfield, are disillusioned. Between the both of them, Gatsby is more disillusioned than Caulfield. Although both characters are disillusioned, because of Jay Gatsby’s foolish image of romance and his ideas of bringing back the past, he is more disillusioned than Holden Caulfield.
Some people may feel empathetic towards Jay Gatsby, while others think …show more content…
Holden does go through some disillusionment, but not to the extent that Gatsby does. Because Holden thinks that “It’s funny. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody,” it shows how he knows he misses people for a reason, he knows that feeling is there and that is why his eyes are open, unlike Gatsby’s closed ones. Some may say that Holden is more disillusioned because of his view of adults, but the truth is he is not. Holden knows adults are “phony” and he says it a million times, making him way less disillusioned than Jay Gatsby. Also, since Holden is so young, he has time to grow and part from his disillusioned ways, meanwhile Gatsby is older and he dies with his last thought thinking about his so-called “love,” which was actually his mind’s disillusion. Gatsby is so disillusioned and caught up with the past that when he is told that he ““Can't repeat the past,” he cried incredulously, “Why of course you can!”” His exclaim insights the audience into his disillusionment and shows that he cannot move on, not even until his