Essay on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Huck Finn

Submitted By DJ_Salinger
Words: 943
Pages: 4
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Coursework 2
Both Twain and Salinger show their main characters Huck and Holden, rejecting social normalities, social beliefs and people. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was written in 1884, whereas The Catcher in the Rye was written in 1951. In terms of context, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was written just after the end of the American Civil war, where the North fought the South, because they had different thoughts over race. America was a very religion place at this time. On the other hand, The Catcher in the Rye was written just after the end of World War 2, which brought on the rise of the teenager, giving the teenagers the freedom they wanted. Both characters, are American Heroes. In extract 1, we see Huck debating whether or not Jim would have a better life as a slave, and whether or not people would judge Huck because he helped a “nigger” have a better life. Whereas in extract 2, we see Holden talking too Sally rejecting the school system and contemporary social attitudes and values.
One difference that can be seen straight away, is that in extract 1, Huck Finn rejects through narration, whereas Holden Caulfield rejects through dialogue. From this, we can see that Huck Finn’s rejection is secret, he doesn’t portray his rejection to the general public, he wants to keep it to himself, whereas Holden’s rejection is open, people can hear him rejecting, and he is telling people what, and why he is rejecting certain things. This links back to the rise of the teenager, because Holden is making his rejection public, he doesn’t care what people think of his opinion.
In extract one, there is a piece of narration, where Huck Finn narrates: “After all this long journey, and after all we’d done for them scoundrels, here was it all come to nothing, everything was all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart ti serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars.” This narration is happening where Huck and Jim have ran away, and they are together, discussing what has previously happened. Throughout this extract, there is an overall negative lexis, shown with words such as “scoundrels”, “trick”, and “dirty dollars”. The words “scoundrels” and “trick” portray to the reader that something went wrong, the people that Huck and Jim earned the money off, had betrayed them in some way, or “tricked” them. We know this because Huck is narrating them as “scoundrels”, which is defined as: a worthless or villainous person. The phrase “dirty dollars” rejects social conventions, as if the dollars were earned in a legitimate, normal way, they wouldn’t be phrased as “dirty”. This can be compared to extract 2, where Holden Caulfield openly says: “all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day.” Throughout extract 2, there is a use of negative and emotive language, which is similar to the language used in extract 1. As Holden is saying this to Sally, he is speaking, in comparison to Huck Finn narrating. This dialogue is Holden ranting. Holden uses the example of “goddamn Cadillac”, which is an iconic brand name for a car in America. The Cadillac is part of the typical American dream, where people get a good job to save up for a nice car, in this instance, a Cadillac. The use of this iconic brand name in Holden’s rant, is a rejection of
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