Compare the way in which rejection is presented in a passage from Huck and a passage from Catcher
Both the book Catcher in the Rye and the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are structured around the theme of rejection. Even though both books are based around this theme, Catcher is based more widely around the idea of rejection. The text of Catcher in the Rye is set after the main character, Holden is kicked out of his current boarding school, Pencey Prep leaving the school grounds and rejecting his education, as well as rejecting the idea of the school being filled with ‘ a bunch of phonies’ that attend it and the school itself. The text for Huckleberry is set when Huck is faking the scene of his own death, to escape from Pap.
Both texts use the feature of pathos, to build up sympathy for the both Holden and Huck, showing them running away and rejecting their surroundings, however each text uses it to show a different type rejection. In Catcher in the Rye an example of pathos is “sort of crying, I don’t know why” this creates pathos, us as the reader will feel sympathetic and take pity on Holden, since he doesn’t want to stay at the school. In the passage it, it does however say he was “sort of crying”, which shows us a part of him does want to be at Pencey, but he is wanting to leave more due to the use of the phrase ‘sort of’. This shows us Holden rejecting his education, due to the fact he is leaving the school. Likewise in Huckleberry Finn the text shows us another feature that is syndetic listing “Then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with the string, so it wouldn’t leak no more, and took it and saw to my canoe again” as the last two things in the list is the word ‘and’. This shows us that Huck has really thought through his plan to leave, since he is able to list to the reader all the things that he is going to do as he goes through with his escape from Pap.
Another thing that both Catcher and Huck have is the use of a narrative voice for both characters, as both texts are in the 1st person. We are able to see this as both Twain and Salinger use pronouns such as ‘I’ and ‘me’. This allows the reader to hear their voice in their head and this means that we are hearing their own true thoughts and feelings during the duration of the text and gives us a clear idea about their rejection through using this technique., as it is a direct link from the character to the reader and hasn’t been planned in advanced. However even though both texts are in the 1st person, the dialect and type of language used is extremely different as they are both taking place in different eras of time and pace. Huck is seen as very uneducated, and we can tell this through his speech whereas with Holden he is a lot more literate and formal, and we can tell he has received an education as that is where he is when we see him portraying the feeling of rejection.
In both texts there is a use of characterisation to show the theme of rejection in their lives. However due to the different situations of the novels, the characterisation of the different protagonist are going to be completely different. For example in Catcher Holden is seen as very rebellious, and uses a lot of humour and irony to show his rejection of Pencey “Sleep tight, ya morons!” Holden shouts this as the students are sleeping when he leaves the school, this shows how Holden doesn’t really care about the fact that he is leaving, and doesn’t see it as a very serious thing. This shows