The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger’s novel set in the 1950s, told the story of sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield. Deciding that he’s had enough of Pencey, his fourth school that he’d failed, he goes to Manhattan three days before his scheduled return to home, not wanting to inform his parents that he’d been expelled and sent back. He explores the city, calls up some old friends, gets nicked by the elevator operator, and gradually becomes bitter about the world and people. He then visited his sister Phoebe. After fleeing from the house of Mr.
Antolini, his former English teacher, because of mistaking his actions for a homosexual overture, Holden went to Phoebe’s school and sent her a note telling her he was leaving home and to meet him at the museum. When Phoebe arrived, Holden angrily refused her request to take her with him and she ignored to speak to him. He then took her across the park to a carousel, bought her a ticket and watched her ride. Holden ended his narrative here, telling the reader that he was not going to tell the story of how he went home and got “sick”. He planned to go to a new school in the fall and was cautiously optimistic about his future.
Tears of a Tiger, Sharon M. Draper’s compelling novel about the death of high school basketball star Rob Washington in an automobile accident, exposed the dangers of drinking and driving with its deadly consequences. Andy Jackson was driving the car that crashed, killing his best friend Rob, and the cost was more than he could bear. Months later, he still couldn’t stop blaming himself, even after the constant comforts from his friends and sessions with a psychologist. Drowning in his guilt, he turned away from his family, his friends, his girlfriend and his future.
Whirligig, Paul Fleischman’s beautifully constructed novel that spun the complex story of Brent Bishop and his task to memorialize Lea, an unfortunate teen who crossed his path when he tried to kill himself in a car. To keep Lea’s spirit alive, Brent was assigned to create four whirligigs that resembled Lea, and put them in the four corners of the United States. With an unlimited bus ticket and tools, Brent set out on his journey and rediscovered the joy of life and saw how like the pieces of the whirligig, people came together to affect each other in amazing ways.
The three characters have a lot in common in the different aspects of their lives. They all have an important personality trait- they’re all self-destructive. Holden’s loneliness lead to his secret wishes to die, yet his self-cowardice prevented him from committing suicide. Andy Jackson couldn’t fight off the guilt and blinded by it, he chose the path to death. Brent Bishop was humiliated by his crush’s request to leave her alone and it drove him to destroy himself in a car crash. The three characters’ main problem was that they had no one to turn to and was wrapped in their conflicts.
Holden’s family doesn’t show him love, but time and time again pushed him away by sending him to boarding schools. Andy Jackson tried to take in everyone’s comforts and tell himself it’s not his fault, but he couldn’t make himself believe that and eventually pushed everyone away without realization. Brent was being humiliated by his friend and crush at a party and was the pariah in his new town. The three has similar relationships with parents as well. They were distant with the children and don’t understand them.
Holden’s parents pushed him away, Andy’s dad expects him to be an important person in the white society, and Brent’s parents ignored him. Holden’s relationship with his friends and peers were as dead as his relationship with his parents. He had no real friends since he considered his peers as phonies just like adults, who took advantage of him because he was young. This isolated him from the community since he often lives with his self-pity and does not face up to his problems. Andy had a very strong and caring relationship with his friends and peers.
However, the tragedy with Rob made him draw away from his friends and isolated him with guilt. Brent was new to his town and longed to fit in, yet his peers always considered him to be an outsider and did not accept him into their crowd. Everyone treated him as if he had no feelings and cracked jokes about him while he was around. Holden never adjusted to his new schools and he never tried either. Andy didn’t try at his school because he knew that because he is black, teachers expected him to be dumb and in doing so, humiliated him when he gets a good grade in order to maintain their reputation as “good” teachers.
He figured if this is what they saw students of his race are like, then he might as well give them what they want. Brent’s adjustment to school was not mentioned in the book, but I believe that his situation is similar to those of Holden and Andy since he didn’t get along with peers. These three young boys all did not have the ability to cope with growing up. Holden Caulfield saw life is a pointless game. Instead of acknowledging that adulthood scared and mystified him, Holden invented a fantasy that adulthood was a world of superficiality and hypocrisy, while childhood was a world of innocence, curiosity, and honesty.
His big brother and little sister both had so much to give to the society, but there’s no bright future for the loser in the family. Andy Jackson loved his life before the accident. Although his parents were not what they should be, he had a best friend, a loving girlfriend, buddies who cared, and a coach who understood. Everything changed after Rob died. Despite the comforts of his friends, he thought no one understood him and when no one was there for him to talk to on the phone, he decided there was no point in living anymore.
Brent was angry about how his friend and crush embarrassed him on his only hope of fitting in with his town. He felt spent, emptied of all will. He was beyond tantrums. He thought there was no more point in returning to his life after the events since his life was like a house that had burned to the ground. Out of the three novels, I liked Tears of a Tiger the best. Sharon M. Draper’s writing style was simple yet touching. The way she made the book narrated through different people’s perspective gave a better understanding of characters aside from Andy.
Whirligig was similarly written, but wasn’t detailed as Tears of a Tiger. It focused mostly on Brent’s journey, not his thoughts and feelings. The Catcher in the Rye was based on the first person’s point of view, which sometimes make it quite boring since all Holden was saying was how phony people were and how the world was such a horrible place. The language of Tears of a Tiger was easy to read, but it was written well enough so teenagers could relate to it and feel the main character.
The language in The Catcher in the Rye showed what kind of person was Holden, but after a while it became annoying and boring to read since it constantly criticized people and their phoniness. Andy’s character development was static. He gradually lost control of his life and let his guilt control his mind. Andy and Brent’s problems were easily understandable by readers. Basketball was a source of physical release for Andy, but it also raised strong feelings of guilt. He loved to play, but felt guilty that he was given Rob’s position on the team- a position that he was never good for when Rob was alive.
Brent was trying to battle common peer pressure, as most of us do these days. Reputation was the most important thing to build when you were new to town, and when everyone was ruining it on purpose, there seemed to be no point in trying to try to live a life of humiliation. I didn’t really feel for Holden. I know he felt useless for being the loser of the family and he was confused by why Allie had to die, but he should’ve tried to prove himself to his parents and people in general, not shrink back and hide behind his self-pity.
One of the themes of The Catcher of the Rye is alienation as a form of protection. Throughout the novel, Holden seemed to be excluded from and victimized by the world around him. Holden’s alienation was the cause of most of his pain. He never addressed his own emotions directly, nor did he attempt to discover the source of his troubles. He desperately needed human contact and love, but his protective wall of bitterness prevented him from looking for such interaction. Alienation was both the source of Holden’s strength and the source of his problems.
He depended upon his alienation, but it destroyed him. The issue that was raised in Tears of a Tiger was the problem of teenage drinking and driving. It’s dangerous to those who attempt it, and meanwhile harmful to those around. The issue in Whirligig was teenagers’ fight with peer pressure. No one wanted to go against the big crowd, no one wanted to be outside and left alone. When the pressure becomes overwhelming, it often causes teens to do depressing things to themselves or the ones around them. Overall, I enjoyed Tears of a Tiger because it was a page-turner and a moving piece of literature.