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Quotes For The Catcher In The Rye

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The Catcher in the Rye, written by Jerome David Salinger and the novel What We All Long For, written by Dionne Brand, both depict the inner thought and the growth of a young rebellious character. Holden Caulfield, the sixteen-year-old protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye,is in the dilemma between childhood and adulthood. He is caught between the mourning of childhood’s disappearing and the fear of adulthood’s coming. On the other hand, Tuyen, the protagonist in the second novel, is a Vietnamese artist who is forced to leave her home country and move to Toronto. Unlike an ordinary girl, Tuyen seems not to be that docile since she chooses to live away from her parents, Cam and Tuan, who still cannot move smoothly into their current life in …show more content…

Both Tuyen and Holden are undoubtedly rebellious; however, Tuyen’s rebellion is more thought-provoking and strong in terms of social background, target and behavior. The social background of Salinger’s novel is the post-World War Ⅱ period, during which obsolete traditions and conventionalities have been broken, yet no new standard has been established. The varying society is filled with phoniness and freedom. This is the period in which the social imbalance and ambiguity make it more difficult for adolescents to form their morality and to grow up. Holden, who happens to be an adolescent under such situation, takes the adulthood which he thinks is phony, corrupted and puzzling as his rebellion’s target. However, he lacks the ability to overthrow the corrupted world of the adult, so he could do nothing but pursue self-identity, love and innocence by means of rebellions. His rebellion is an aimless gesture rather than a heroic fight taken in this sense. Moreover, Holden implements …show more content…

She lives in Toronto, where biases towards non-white prevail. However, unlike Holden, that background acts as a catalyst rather than the producer of her rebellion. In other words, the rebellion has long been in her heart, and the social background is not the dominant reason. It can be inferred that her rebellion derives mainly from her unusual past experiences. As Shakespeare once said, “Self-sentiment dominates”; thus, her rebellion can be considered much stronger than Holden’s so-called rebellion since it is a product of her own heart. It can be said that her rebellion reflects her inner deep thought and her true feelings while Holden’s rebellion is to conceal his inner puzzlement and uncertainty. From my perspective, Tuyen’s rebellion has two targets. Firstly, in the novel, her parents have long been suffering from the loss their son Quy, and they cannot fully commit themselves to the life they are living; however, Tuyen is rebellious against that kind of endless entanglement with the past. Besides, for a deeper level, Tuyen, just like other protagonists in the novel, “recognizes the city’s incomplete nature, and views it as a battleground, as a space for political action and for the creation of a viable sense of self — a space for building culture from below”(Dobson 89). It can be viewed as a deeper-level rebellion, a more profound one. Therefore, it is evident that compared with Holden’s, Tuyen’s target is more

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