Catcher In The Rye And Life Of Pi Comparison Essay

In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and Life of Pi by Yann Martel both characters have not fully grown up, although Pi is much more mature than Holden Caulfield, They both have not found that utter serenity that makes them feel complete. Holden looks for this through materialistic things such as money, alcohol and sex while Pi desires to understand the totality of who God really is. The first theme I would like to discuss is death. Death is the termination of someone or something. The death in someone can cause a lot of pain, suffering and a change in the way someone acts, Pi's family dies in the shipwreck. This made him feel very lonely that's why he anthropomorphized each animal to fit the role of the members of his family that

His faith helped him to create that alternate reality. He was prone to believing great stories, based on faith, and that helped him to believe his own. He also prayed every day on the raft, had a firm grasp of what forgiveness meant, and didn't feel alone because of his faith. It enabled him to make it through his situation without feeling totally alone and isolated. On the other hand in, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden has so little faith in humanity. Holden throughout the whole novel differs from society which results in his rebellious nature. Holden does not have any friends and cannot keep relationships. This is because he finds and exaggerates the negative aspects of all the people he knows or meets. This can be seen when Holden cannot keep his relationship with his girlfriend Sally. He can't communicate with anyone and feels that the only person he can even relate to is his sister Phoebe. Holden cannot function as a normal part of society because of his hatred towards all "phonies", which he believes everyone to be, an example from the novel is, "Even the couple of nice teachers on the faculty, they were phonies, too," (Salinger,