Virgin Suicide And Catcher In The Rye Comparison Essay

The Virgin Suicides and The Catcher in the Rye are two painfully realistic American novels that share several commonalities. Throughout both of the stories many of the same themes, including sex, adolescence, rebelliousness and loss, are shared. One critic, William Poster, identifies Holden Caulfield as being “typical not so much of this adolescent class as a whole, but of a specific and extensive part of it, namely, those individuals who think of themselves as exceptions to the class by virtue of their superior taste.” Such insight can also be attributed to Lux Lisbon who shared much of the same mindset as Holden Caulfield. These two protagonists, Lux and Holden, although growing up in different time periods, share many of the same struggles …show more content…
Holden ultimately decides that school is not for him and that he is leaving town for good. Phoebe argues against his decision and begs to go with him. Before Holden leaves, he takes Phoebe to the carousel at the zoo and watches as she enjoys her childhood moments such as these. He then reflects on his past and wishes he had not tried to grow up so quickly. After this point, Holden returns to the current point in his life and ends his narrative. He proceeds to tell the reader that he is not going to tell of how he went home and got “sick,” instead he relates his plans to go to a new school and rethink his future. The Virgin Suicides is a brutally raw novel written in 1993 by Jeffrey Eugenides. This story is set during the summer, around June, in a suburban neighborhood. It opens at the present point of the story; however, the story line then backtracks to the beginning. A group of boys, who are friends of the Lisbon sisters, inform the reader of what is currently happening; “On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide- it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Terese” (Eugenides, 1). At that point, the author shifts the setting to a time when all the Lisbon sisters were