Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye essay Essay

The newfangleds The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the rye whisky are both put together in times where the expectations of society differed from the unmatchables of today. Huckleberry Finn is vex in the late 1800s, pre USA civil war and in a time where sla very was an suffered occurrence and the hop out of a slave was seen as legally and morally wrong. This was similarly a time in which church attendance and education were seen as tokens of respectability. A young boy, the eponymic character, Huck, seeks to reject all that he regards as oppressive and cruel in set up to establish an alternative smell as a wanderer, utmost from bragging(a) control.The Catcher in the Rye, on the some other hand, was set in the late 1940s, a time when teenagers were just beginning to pull ahead their own lives and being allowed more granting immunity than ever before. The picaresque refreshed gives the ratifier an insight into middleclass life in New York in the 50s and how one boy felt trapped by the expectations of his parents and school. His period of comparative freedom leads to unexpected consequences as he falls victim to depression and ultimate supervision in an institution, putting paid forever to his dreams of freedom.Both romances picture the themes of freedom and escape and the selected extracts portray incidents in the characters lives which focus on this theme. In both of the extracts, the characters are pretending to be someone else, Huckleberry Finn a young girl and Holden Caulfield taking a false identity. The reader may vulgarize from this that by assuming a diametric and fake identity, the two boys back end escape from their own lives ones that are full of problems and worries. Escaping their lives allows them both to live a little more freely, even if just for a little while. however, Huckleberry Finn and Holden condition on their new identities for contrastive reasonablenesss. For instance, Huckleberry Finn assumes the alternative identity in order to travel across town without being recognised by anybody, as he was supposed to give up died not long before. Another reason he had to pretend to be a girl is to protect his and Jims safety. Holden on the other hand, assumes the alternative identity in order to assist people he meets on his journey without the people realising that he should unperturbed be at school. Various audiences of the two novels would interpret and receive the occurrences in the extracts very differently.For example, the audience of Huckleberry Finn would be shocked at Huck escaping, liveliness with a slave and then dressing as a girl. This is because the changes in society since Huckleberry Finn was written are signifi faecal mattert. In the late 1800s, young boys were to be well educated and then sent off to be a successful businessman, not to escape and run amok. Slaves were also seen as substandard and a possession and anybody helping them was breaking the law. Anoth er thing that the different audiences would feel differently about is the fact that Jim gets called a nigger kinda often.An audience of the 1880s would accept that as normal as they were utilise to hearing it, whereas an audience of the 2000s would be shocked by this, as the enounce nigger has a very malicious meaning nowadays and is considered a racist insult due to the equality rights now in even-tempereded in the mass of society, due to the word undergoing perjoration. The audience of Catcher in the Rye would plausibly not be surprised at the behaviour that Holden employs, as teenagers in the late 1940s were gaining a new sense of freedom and the dangers of permit your children out into the world unsupervised had not yet been considered.They also would accept that he might befriend any stranger that he comes across. However in the 40s there still existed traditional views about respect for self-confidence although they were gradually evaded. His parents however do not appr ove of him staying in the hotel by himself. In the 2000s however, we would frown upon a young teenager travelling close to alone, talking to strangers and booking a hotel room in a voluminous city. The maturity date of the two different characters is also very different.Although Holden wants and tries to be mature, the reader very quickly sees that he is in actual fact very childish and naive. This could be so that he can escape the realities of adult life, and stay in his idealistic childs world forever. disdain this, he does attempt to calculate more of an adult by utilise more out(p) lyric communication and more complicated language round people who he would like to impress, like the females in the Lavender Room. For example, he says Im twelve, for Chrissake.Im big for my age. Although the word Chrissake, which is the oral communication Christs sake after undergoing elision and with Holdens idiolect, is not considered forbidden now, it was still frowned upon in the 1 940s, as some sectors of society were still highly religious. Another taboo word he used a lot is Goddamn. Again this word, which is the words God damn that have also undergone elision and are with Holdens idiolect, is no longer considered taboo or offensive, due to the change in society over time.This language choice illustrates Holdens immaturity as it shows that he believes that using taboo words and more complicated language will catch him explore more grown up, when in actual fact it simply makes him seem barbaric and pretentious. Huck, on the other hand seems quite comfortable with his maturity level, which is one that seems to fluctuate. For instance, he seems to treat the whole journey in the novel as an adventure, one that fuels his child-like imagination as is shown when Huck plays a frippery on Jim. He says I went to the cavern to get some, and found a rattlesnake in there.I killed him, and curled him up at the pick of Jims blanket, ever so natural, thinking thered be some fun when Jim found him there. This illustrates his immature side as children are more likely to play pranks and find them amusing. Another itinerary that Twain shows Hucks immaturity and failed education is through his speech, as Twain uses elision in depicting Hucks speech and gives him a very strong idiolect and dialect. one instance of this is Who done it? weve perceive considerable about these goings on, down in Hookerville, but we dont know who twas that killed Huck Finn. Huck uses the word twas instead of saying it was. Using elision as strong as this also shows us how badly educated Huck is, despite the attempts of Widow Douglas to sort out this. However, you do get to see the more mature side of Huck. One example of this is when he makes plans for his escape from his father. He makes a list of the things he needs and even fakes his own death so that he can never be found. This shows his maturity because he has the initiative to put the plans into do and fool the people he is escaping from.Another example would be when he treats and considers Jim to be his friend, as it is obvious that he has to ignore society and make his own decision to befriend someone who could potentially get him into bustle with the law. Also, he has to overcome a moral dilemma when deciding whether to escape with Jim, or hand him over to Widow Douglas, to whom Jim rightfully belongs. The fact that Jim is a possession of someone else would shock modern audiences as they are not used to this due to the change in society.This particularly shows his maturity because he was making a decision about somebody elses life as well, as Jim would have been sold on if returned to Widow Douglas, then thwarting his plan to find his family. The decision that Huck had to make had consequences beyond his control and Huck was fully and completely aware of this whilst making the choice. The commutation characters in the two novels respond to the theme of escape in different but not quit e contrasting ways. For Huckleberry Finn, the journey he goes on allows him to grow up and realise what he wants for himself in the future.Hucks resolution to embrace traditional societal values by resuming his studies shows he has come to a positive decision about his future. On the other hand, for Holden the journey is a reality check, as it shows him that he is not hit for the outside and adult world because he hadnt even got the wide-eyed childs world right. He saw life as a game, and was stubbornly naive. His loss of autonomy at the end of the novel shows loss of dreams of freedom and little hope of escape from the downward helix he has found himself in along the way.