Holden and Alexander's Frustration - Research Paper Example

This essay discusses the similarities in Holden and Alexander’s life situation. Theme and special connection between the characters Throughout the novel and children’s book, Holden and Alexander are struggling though their life and day, because growing up can be painful. “I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day” (Viorst 1) When Alexander wakes up in the morning, finds the gum he had slept with in the mouth stuck in the hair. As he gets out of the bed, he trips on the skateboard and accidentally drops his sweater in the sink with running water.

When he gets to the breakfast table, Alexander feels bad that all he could find was breakfast cereals while Anthony found a Corvette Sting Ray car kit as Nick found a junior Undercover Agent code ring in their breakfast cereal boxes. Alexander continues to have a bad day as Mrs. Gibson lets Becky, Elliott and Audrey to sit at the window despite Alexander’s grievances of which no one paid attention to. At school, Mrs. Dickens likes Paul’s picture of the sailboat better than Alexander’s picture of the invisible castle.

At singing time, Alexander was told that he sang too loud while at the counting time he was told he left out 16. This makes Alexander angry and asks “Who needs sixteen?” (Viorst 7). . During lunchtime Philip, parker had two-cup cakes in his lunch bag and Albert had Hershely bar with almonds. Paul had a piece of jelly roll that had a little coconut sprinkles on top but did not have any After school her mother takes all of them to the dentist and Dr. Fields finds a cavity in Alex. He asks him to get back the following week.

“Next week, I said am going to Australia” Similar happenings in The catcher in the rye Holden too has bad experience in school when he is kicked out of the pency prep school in Pennsylvania for failing his classes except English. His attempts in chatting Ackley for company end up distorted making him to decide to leave Pencey (Salinger 22). Holden gets to New York and is undecided on whom to call.  Here Holden is avoiding his parents so that they could not realize that he had been kicked out of school.

In Edmond, in the hotel lounge, he dances with three "moron" girls. He is disappointed because the girl he found attractive among the three was a minor and thus allowed to drink. The girls take off. when Holden gets back into a cad and goes to Ernie’s knowing that he will be able to drink there, he runs into an old and annoying acquaintance leaving her so that he can avoid spending time with her. In the end, he ends up with a prostitute sunny who leaves with his money but no sex. Sunny the prostitute returns with his pimp who beats Holden.

Holden is having a very bad life and the craziness of the city life makes him want to run away and hide in a log cabin as he tells Sally. Sally is not willing to run away with Holden as he had wished (Salinger 74-98). Conclusion The two books have a different audience target. However, both books have the same message of how life can be stressful to children and to