In the novels The Catcher in the Rye and The Member of the Wedding, Both Salinger and McCullers invite the reader to discover how the adult world can impact the lives of young people. The novels notably describe how their protagonists (Holden Caulfield in Catcher and Frankie in Member) feel oppressed by the constraints and expectations of an adult world. The Catcher in the Rye has an immediacy that could allow it to be considered a more powerful depiction of a child's point of view, and it could be argued that the perhaps more convoluted timeline of The Member of the Wedding does not does not confer such power. Yet McCullers' poetic language and underlying metaphors probably allow it to be seen as just as powerful in a markedly different way. This vision of an oppressive world is shared by both novels despite differences in narrative technique: for example, Holden is a man, while Frankie is a woman; McCullers uses a third-person narrative voice, while Salinger uses the first person. Say no to plagiarism. Get Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay From the beginning, both novels make it clear that the main protagonist feels oppressed in some way by the environment or atmosphere that surrounds it. In Catcher, this is reflected in Holden's irreverent, even rebellious, voice. The first words are: “If you really want to hear about it.” This "you", with which he addresses the reader, engenders sympathy and, perhaps more intriguingly, raises questions of reliability when the reader realizes that this is the subjective interpretation of events by Holden. The storyteller's apparent reluctance to tell his story is reinforced by a stated lack of desire to describe his "ugly childhood", where he "was born" or how his "parents were busy...and all that David Copperfield bullshit" – all this demonstrates an aversion to autobiographical conventions. We are already in the world of someone who feels out of step with their environment and who opposes the conventions of the adult world around them. The marriage member takes a different approach. It begins somewhat conventionally with "It happened that crazy green summer when Frankie was twelve." This sentence has a simplicity reminiscent of children's stories, which raises certain expectations in the reader about the type of drama that might ensue. However, instead of childhood innocence, there is ambiguity in the adjectives "green" and "crazy"; atmospheric words that suggest innocence, naivety (green) and confusion (crazy). Given that Frankie is "twelve years old", the reader might conclude that he is being presented with a "coming of age" story. Moreover, the “that” (the first word) is, of course, elusive to us during our first reading. Even at the end of the novel, we still don't know what "it" refers to: it might involve the much-anticipated marriage of Frankie's brother, or perhaps Frankie's sexual development (at the end of part two, Frankie (F. Jasmine at this point) still cannot accept the thought of sex, and therefore labels her "crazy" following her assessment of her sexual encounters). The apparent conventionality of McCullers' narration, unlike Catcher, is perhaps further undermined by the underlying metaphors. McCullers uses poetic language composed of many possible meanings. For example, there is an atmospheric representation of the outside world to indicate theFrankie's inner world: “In June the trees were a bright, dizzying green, but later the leaves darkened and the town grew black and shrunk in the glare of the sun. » The descriptions of the weather alone evoke an oppressive atmosphere: the "dark" leaves and the "black and shrunken" town are both metaphorical of Frankie's despair. Additionally, "green" could be seen as a symbol of the freshness of Frankie's youth, and "bright dizzy" could be seen as a symbol of the freshness of Frankie's youth. reflecting his uncertainty at a vulnerable stage of development . McCullers therefore does not seem to execute his introduction with the immediacy of Catcher, but rather quietly renders his prose with subtle meanings. It is extremely difficult to decide which is the more powerful introduction: Salinger's intimate and opinionated speech or the finesse of McCullers' prose. Holden's direct speech grabs the reader's attention by expressing points that seem sensitive to the oppressive nature of his society without seeming constrained by such oppression, which can be seen in context: set in 1949 (American America). 'post-war), Holden criticizes the balance that the government had difficulty maintaining, mainly due to the threat of communism. McCarthyism limited the actions of many people, particularly those in the arts, and women were similarly prevented from pursuing careers outside the home, as the supposedly disturbed idea of ​​a family needed to be corrected before the war. A working father and a stay-at-home mother were thought to be the appropriate avenue to present the idea that work was “unfeminine.” Holden seems to want to rebel against the aforementioned American ideologies. An acquaintance, Sally, interprets Holden's desire to "escape" as a desire to "travel" by telling Holden that they will have "plenty of time to do all these things...I mean after you go to college and everything, and if we get married. and everything.” This could be seen as a passive acceptance of the social conventions of the time and – in the sense that Sally does not question the unimaginative and perhaps boring future that she has been conditioned to see as right – the Holden's ideas are comparatively much less inclined towards the future. status quo; it seems that he views such a comfortable future as consistent with a life devoid of surprises. As we continue reading, we encounter in both novels a theme of corruption that threatens to encroach on the lives of the protagonists. The objectivity and lack of bias with which McCullers' third-person narrative unfolds allows for direct, unmediated observation of behavior that is up to the reader to interpret, perhaps psychoanalytically. In Member, p. 33 (Part I), there is a "strange sin" that Frankie allegedly committed with a Barney MacKean whom she hated so much that she "planned to kill him... shoot him with the gun or throw a knife at him between the eyes,” but that doesn’t necessarily mean Frankie is mad at Barney. Instead, it could be interpreted as resentment or defensiveness masking fear and guilt for what she did; she feels corrupted. The symptoms of her sense of corruption continue throughout Part 1: “she could not name the feeling within herself.” The reader can feel Frankie's stress: she is oppressed by emotions too complex for her age. Additionally, due to the authenticity of the narrative, that is, we trust the third person narrative because it seems unbiased, theThe reader can sense Frankie's high level of insight compared to Holden, who could be said to be too possessed by his own despair. and anger in order to perceive the world accurately. In Catcher, Holden sees corruption all around him. Of his brother he says "DB, being a prostitute...in Hollywood." The implication is that DB – as an author – has not been true to his art, seduced by material wealth. Of course, DB didn't necessarily sell out by going to Hollywood – Holden could instead be masking his true feelings; it is likely that he misses his brother, especially since he no longer has Allie, his deceased brother. Holden goes on to express his dislike of "shams" like his former manager, Mr. Haas, whom he calls "the most phony bastard I've ever met in my life...[who] if the mother of a boy was pretty big…would just shake it off. he would hold their hands and give them a fake smile, and then he would go talk, for maybe half an hour, with someone else's parents” – p. 12. Holden tells us that this deceptive behavior "makes me so depressed I'm going crazy." Through such descriptions, the reader understands what Holden means when he describes people as "fake", and how their "fakeness" affects him because it is often those with social power (such as a manager) who demonstrate this superficiality; and this results in a feeling of anger for Holden who is subject to the actions of "phonies" socially superior to him. Perhaps the difference between the two novels in terms of this theme of corruption is that Frankie feels the corruption within, while Holden feels the corruption. from outside. Thus, while Holden explicitly identifies the source of corruption in his brother, the former headmaster, and others, McCullers alludes to a psychological corruption within Frankie. For example, on page 32 we learn that in Frankie there is "a tension...that wouldn't break" and that "what she did was always wrong." The narrative only goes so far in describing exactly what this "tension" is or what is wrong, instead allowing the ambiguous language to reveal only Frankie's displeasure and confusion. However, like Holden, we can conclude that corruption is the result of oppressive experience from the outside – i.e. adult – world. Chronologically, these novels effectively convey themes of oppression and reflect the attributes of their protagonists in radically distinct ways. even if they each take place over just a few days. Salinger's episodic narrative quickly takes the reader through the passage of Holden's time. Through dialogue, the reader is somehow brought into a sense of real time which, juxtaposed with Holden's tangential stream of consciousness, constructs a timeline whose erratic nature leaves the reader feeling overstimulated over a short period of time, similarly way that Holden himself can be said to be overly stimulated by his time in the adult world of New York. An example – in the middle of the story – demonstrating Holden's spontaneous affair with a prostitute, where he tries to extricate himself from a situation that is starting to make him "sad as hell": he lies about a back operation on his “clavichord…in the spinal canal” (a clavichord is actually a stringed musical instrument). This encounter evokes, once again, Holden's sensitivity to corruption in the outside world, and his sadness suggests how sensitive he is to it. After the whore's long departure, Holden speaks out loud to Allie (his deceased brother), begins to reminisce about his childhood, then begins to transgressively talk about the Bible and his favorite character "next to Jesus , was he crazy and all,That ? lived in tombs and cut himself with stones.” One could argue that his digressions take away the reader's sense of time due to their inconstancy, but we are instantly brought back to earth with Salinger's reapplication of the dialogue. In this case, Holden strays from Christianity and gets into an argument with a boy at school when "someone knocked at the door...old Sunny [whore] and Maurice [pimp]." Here, an altercation escalates into an argument that results in Holden being "slapped." Such a fluctuating narrative rollercoaster takes the reader on a journey through time, powerfully representing Holden's adolescent bewilderment at a world he finds restrictive, sinister, and therefore oppressive. The effect of Salinger's juxtaposition between the Bible and the prostitute is perhaps a reflection of Holden's character (he is a lesser version of the self-harming madman), followed by an illustration of why this is true: by wandering alone, not eating, not drinking. and by picking up whores, Holden is harming himself, and maybe he knows it, maybe he's referring to the biblical madman as an extreme of himself, resentful of society and seriously lacking in self-esteem. Holden enters a downward spiral with an inevitability that could be seen as necessary to the fulfillment and content we witness at the end of the novel. McCullers, conversely, convolutes time. His descriptions of the dismal heat and details of the world expressed symbolically during the endless hours spent around the kitchen table with John Henry and Berenice somehow elongate our perception of time and seem to slow the heart rate of Frankie: “the sad old kitchen was making Frankie sick…she could feel her tight heart beating against the edge of the table.” Such a shift further alludes to the aforementioned atmospheric oppression which in itself can be seen to represent a different sense of oppression within Frankie. In Member, Berenice can be seen as a pivotal character reflecting Frankie's feelings of oppression. Despite their continual bickering, Berenice may feel just as discouraged as Frankie about how she can be said to represent the repressive world of a black woman in the 1940s South. Her repetitive cycle of relationships Abusive abuse can also be suggested – in addition to Frankie's psychological troubles – in metaphors such as the monotonous hum of the radio and the tuning of the piano in Part II: "...the chords sounded slowly upward like a castle staircase : but just at the end, when the eighth chord should have sounded and the scale was complete, there was a stop. The seventh string…strapped and insisted again and again…”. Frankie's wish to "belong" and escape to Alaska, and Winter Hill (for the wedding) take place in dreary heat and time seems to drag on. The perception of time is convoluted through metaphors like the clock for example, where “the city was silent except for the clock. F. Jasmine felt the world spinning and nothing was moving.” This type of imagery creates a slowness but also suggests an unstoppable advance of time and the transience of life in relation to the destiny of John Henry (he dies at the end of the novel). Surprisingly, when major events such as the wedding itself occur, they are described in minor, but poignant detail: "The wedding was like a dream beyond her control or like a spectacle not managed by her and to which she did not was supposed to participate. » .The closing of Catcher sees Holden as an adult: while his younger sister Phoebe rides on the carousel, he assumes an adult disposition by sitting on the bench where”.