What makes us grow up?
Table of Contents
Introduction:
* Rationale * Texts and Authors * Focussing Questions
Focussing Question 1: * J.D. Salinger * John Knowles * Stephen Chbosky
Focussing Question 2: * J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye * John Knowles, A Separate Peace * Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of being a Wallflower
Focussing Question 3: * Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye * Gene Forrester, A Separate Peace * Charlie, The Perks of being a Wallflower
Conclusion
* Summary * Bibliography –References
Rationale
I have decided to research the topic of coming of …show more content…
age literature because of the relevance that it has to myself and the people around me at this point in my life. I’ve always thought of coming of age’s definition as “independence”. Coming of age has a different definition in diverse areas of society, but Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com) told me this when I searched the definition of “coming of age”:
“Coming of age is a young person’s transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be a part of a ritual, as practised by many societies today, such a change is associated with the age of sexual maturity (early adolescence); in others, it is associated with an age of religious responsibility.”
What this paragraph describes to me is that coming of age is not something that can simply be labelled as one thing or another. There is not a point in your life where you wake up one morning and you have merely “come of age” and are tossed into the world of adulthood. Its definition varies from society to society, culture to culture, religion to religion, etc. But, because of this uncertainty of when someone such as myself is to be considered an adult, doesn’t that mean that it is just another point that is thrown amongst the whirlwind of a teenager’s life to be yet another point of confusion and frustration? As I regularly hear from my teachers, parents and some of my wiser friends, “Everyone matures at their own rate”. But what exactly does that vague statement mean? What is maturity? Is it when you can make your own decisions and fend for yourself? But, hang on – if this is the case that idea of coming of age has collapsed on itself. When others make decisions for you and you are still relying on the opinions of to guide your own decisions - have you ever grown up? My original definition of coming of age was independence, but relying on others to direct your own decisions isn’t independent at all.
What influences people to “grow up”? Are the decisions of other people long before our times the reason for us having to grow up, sometimes before we should have to? Is it the factors that are beyond anyone’s control, or rather the impulses of life as a young adult? These impulses and factors may include war, sex, religion, love, competition, or even illnesses beyond our control?
What I really want to know, now that I am at the point in my life where I have to “grow up” is –
What makes us grow up?
Purpose
The purpose of my investigation is to research various areas of coming of age literature, including aspects such as the target audiences for such novels, and the author’s backgrounds that may have influenced the plots of their novels, and the main character’s attitudes towards coming of age. The authors I have studied are:
Texts and Authors that I will be focussing on: * The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger * The Perks of being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky * A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
Focussing Questions:
1. Have the backgrounds of the authors of The Catcher in the Rye, The Perks of being a Wallflower and A Separate Peace influenced the personalities of the main characters in their novels?
2. What are the similarities/differences between the main characters in three coming of age novels - The Catcher in the Rye, The Perks of being a Wallflower and A Separate Peace?
3. Within the storyline of each novel, what are the main influences on the main characters’ attitudes towards the idea of “coming of age”, and how are these attitudes expressed?
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1. Have the backgrounds of the authors of The Catcher in the Rye, The Perks of being a Wallflower and A Separate Peace influenced the personalities of the main characters in their novels?
Jerome David (J.D.) Salinger
“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody 's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I 'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they 're running and they don 't look where they 're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That 's all I do all day. I 'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it 's crazy, but that 's the only thing I 'd really like to be.”
-J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Background of J.D. Salinger
J.D. Salinger was born January 1, 1919 in Manhattan, New York. His parents, a Jewish man and an Irish-Catholic woman, owned a meat importing business. Growing up, he attended Valley Forge Military Academy from 1934 to 1936, and then moved to Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. While at Ursinus, he struggled to keep his grades up, and one professor even called him, "the worst English student in the history of the college." After dropping out of Ursinus, he went to other schools only to fail again and again and finally ended up at Columbia University. There, he was enrolled in a writing class taught by Whit Burnett, an editor for the Story Magazine. Burnett was the first to see some writing talent in Salinger, and helped him publish some short stories in Story, which was his first opportunity to get his work read and acknowledged by the public.
World War II came along and Salinger was forced to fly out and join the fight as part of the U.S. Fourth Infantry Division. He was involved in the landing on Utah Beach on D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, where he saw a good amount of combat action. Unfortunately, he was hospitalized and diagnosed with, "combat stress reaction," which sent him back home. According to the online Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, the symptoms of combat stress reactions of World War II were, "slowing of the reaction time, difficulty prioritizing, difficulty initiating routine tasks, preoccupation with minor issues and familiar tasks, indecision and lack of concentration, loss of initiative with fatigue and exhaustion."
After returning home in 1946, Salinger was able to get The New Yorker to print some of his short stories in their paper. One called Slight Rebellion off Madison was the first story to introduce the famous Holden Caulfield. This short story had some similar features and characters of The Catcher in the Rye but it seemed like a rushed, rough draft of the novel soon to come. Five years later, after Salinger had mentioned to many that he felt Holden deserved his own novel, he stretched, detailed, and extensively changed his short story and thus The Catcher in the Rye was published.
Comparison of J.D. Salinger to Holden Caulfield
J.D. Salinger created Holden Caulfield in the book, The Catcher in the Rye as an autobiographical character. Holden 's many adventures lead from his school in Pennsylvania to Central Park in New York. The more readers get to know him, the more they can see that he is a very unique character, and many of the events in the book create surprising results. It 's difficult to understand how J.D. Salinger was able to think of so many different scenarios for Holden to experience. However, when comparing Salinger 's real life experiences to the events of the book, it is arguable most of the book is autobiographical. Certain real life experiences Salinger went through he placed in the book, while at the same time instilling similar characteristics in the protagonist, Holden. The pieces of Salinger 's personal life he put into The Catcher in the Rye make up the main structure and underlying ideas the book presents to its audience.
There are many events and experiences J.D. Salinger included in the novel that are related to his personal life. For example, both, Salinger and Holden were born and raised in Manhattan, and went to preppy private, all-boys schools in Pennsylvania. Another interesting similarity between the two is that they were kicked out of numerous colleges because of grades. Also, Salinger first thought both his parents were Jewish, but soon after his bar mitzvah he found out his mother was Catholic. He wasn 't very happy that his mother had been lying to him throughout his life, and in the book, he shares how Holden has mixed feelings about Catholics. He says they 're always trying to figure out if he 's Catholic, and thinks they would like him more if he was. In one part of the book, Holden meets a couple of Catholic nuns, and accidentally blows some cigarette smoke in their face while donating ten dollars to their church. This shows that he likes the nuns enough to give them money, but he still wants to do something that will let them know he 's still unsure about what he thinks about Catholics.
Finally, another similarity is that Salinger was involved in World War II and was sent home because he suffered from combat stress reaction, while Holden says he wouldn 't be able to stand going into war and would rather die by sitting on the atom bomb. This part of, "The Catcher in the Rye," shows Salinger 's dislike of his service time in the war. It seems Salinger hated being in the army not because he had to shoot and kill people, but because of what kind of people in the army he had to be surrounded by.
Another real life experience that J.D. Salinger seems to have included into his novel is that someone he loved turned him down for a much older man. In 1941, Salinger became romantically involved with Oona O 'Neill, the daughter of Eugene O 'Neill, the famous playwright. A year later, Salinger was whisked off to fight in World War II, from where he sent Oona letters almost daily. Unfortunately for Salinger, Oona met Charlie Chaplin, the actor, producer and director, when she was recommended to play a role in one of his movies. The pair fell in love, and married in 1943, despite Oona 's father disapproving the idea of his eighteen year-old daughter marrying a fifty-four year old man. Salinger was crushed, and reacted by sending Oona an angry letter.
Readers can easily see Salinger 's hurt of romantic rejection in The Catcher in the Rye when Holden 's roommate, Stradlater, goes out on a date with Holden 's childhood girlfriend, Jane Gallagher. It seems one of Holden 's insecurities about their date is that Stradlater is too old and sexually experienced for Jane. Holden is also extremely stressed and nervous over the possibility of Stradlater making sexual advances towards her. J.D. Salinger created Stradlater as the Charlie Chaplin figure, and Jane as Oona. In both circumstances, Salinger and Holden both feel their relationship with the "Jane" in their lives is being taken away by the "Stradlater" figure. Both Stradlaters are older, well known, and popular. Finally, both Holden and Salinger still have strong feelings for their first loves, and are jealous to hear they are dating someone else. The fact that Oona O 'Neill left J.D. Salinger for someone working in the movie entertainment industry is arguably the main reason why Salinger created Holden to have a hatred for Hollywood. In the book, Holden expresses that his older brother, D.B., sold himself out by writing scripts for movies instead of pursuing a serious literature career. He also believes that actors and actresses in movies and plays seem too phony. When he encounters good actors, he then argues that they are too good at what they do and seem too confident:
"In the first place, I hate actors. They never act like people. They just think they do. Some of the good ones do, in a very slight way, but not in a way that 's fun to watch. And if any actor 's good, you can always tell he knows he 's good, and that spoils it."
Knowing Salinger 's past experiences with Charlie Chaplin, it is clear Salinger was still upset when writing this novel and decided to have one more "shot" at the industry who took away his first love.
Salinger and Holden are also similar because of their many failed attempts to find a meaningful, lasting relationship with a woman. The failed relationships in Holden 's life include Sally Hayes, Jane Gallagher, three older women in a lounge, and the prostitute, Sunny. On the other hand, Salinger 's situation was not much better. His first love, Oona, left him, and his first two marriages ended in divorce. Here, it 's plain to see that both have a long record of broken relationships. It looks as if Salinger wanted to express the pain and desperation he feels in losing so many female lovers through Holden 's many failed attempts of creating friendships.
J.D. Salinger created Holden Caulfield as a mirror image of himself. Not only do the two experience similar events, but their feelings, thoughts, and mind-sets are also very alike. In the book, Holden hates being in social environments and having to talk to people. It seems there is something he doesn 't like about everyone he meets, and cuts many conversations short either by insulting the other person or leaving the room. He doesn 't enjoy talking to his fellow student, Ackley, because of his disgusting hygienic habits, nor does he care for his old history teacher, Mr Spencer when he goes to say good-bye to him. At first, he enjoys Mr Spencer, but when his old teacher begins to lecture him about taking school seriously:
"All of a sudden then, I wanted to get the hell out of the room. I could feel a terrific lecture coming on. I didn 't mind the idea so much, but I didn 't feel like being lectured to and smell Vicks Nose Drops and look at old Spencer in his pyjamas and bathrobe all at the same time. I really didn 't."
J.D. Salinger is exactly the same. He does not enjoy being in the public or having anyone know what is going on in his life. He also claims that he writes his best in total privacy. Salinger 's reclusive, anti-social behaviour can be best expressed in his daughter, Margaret 's book, where she explains that it was hard being raised in their house because of the isolation her father put himself through.
The final and one of the most interesting points that proves Salinger and Holden are similar is how they remark that, now that they 've told people their story, they wish they hadn 't. At the end of The Catcher in the Rye Holden says this about his story:
"If you want to know the truth, I don 't know what I think about it. I 'm sorry I told so many people about it…Don 't ever tell anybody anything."
Salinger is known to not have published another book after The Catcher in the Rye even though he still writes books and short stories. He dislikes the attention he gets for writing a popular book, and it drives him to stay away from anyone from the press. Salinger became even more reclusive, going to great lengths to stop any attempt for any of his new stories to become published. He even sued to stop Ian Hamilton from publishing a biography called J.D. Salinger: A Writing Life. to make sure certain personal letters were not included in the book. Salinger also hardly ever made public appearances or allowed people to interview him. Holden and Salinger 's behaviour shows that, even though they want to write their stories out, neither of them wants anyone to read it because then they 'll get attention.
Some might argue that Salinger 's personal life had no effect when he wrote his book. One argument supporting this view is that many believe Salinger could not have been as depressed as Holden was in the book. This means that Salinger didn 't use personal feelings and experience to create Holden, but creativeness and his excellent writing skills. It 's true that a very skilled writer can express feelings they have never felt, but the powerful way Salinger expresses it to the readers seems like he 's had to experience it first.
Looking at the circumstances Holden has to go through, and seeing how they are similar to the experiences of J.D. Salinger, it 's easy to see that The Catcher in the Rye is like an autobiography. He had Holden raised in a similar setting as him, and all of Holden 's outstanding characteristics like his reclusive nature, discontent, and anger towards the movie industry are all from Salinger 's personal life. It 's ironic how so many people try to interview J.D. Salinger and write biographies on him, yet they have The Catcher in the Rye probably the most accurate biography on his famous American author the public will ever see.
John Knowles
“Everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him. It is the moment when his emotions achieve their most powerful sway over him, and afterward when you say to this person "the world today" or "life" or "reality" he will assume that you mean this moment, even if it is fifty years past. The world, through his unleashed emotions, imprinted itself upon him, and he carries the stamp of that passing moment forever.”
– John Knowles, A Separate Peace
Background of John Knowles
Knowles was born in Fairmont, West Virginia, the son of James M. Knowles, a purchasing agent from Lowell, Massachusetts, and Mary Beatrice Shea Knowles from Concord, New Hampshire. In his home town, Knowles’ father was the vice president of a coal company and they received a steady income affording them a decent standard of living. He attended Oyster Bay High School in Oyster Bay, New York from 1940 until 1942, before continuing at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, graduating in 1945. He married Beth Anne Dyment Hughes at the age of 19. Knowles graduated from Yale University as a member of the class of 1949. While at Yale, Knowles served on the Board of Yale Daily News during his sophomore, junior and senior years, specifically as Editorial Secretary during his senior year. He was a record-holding varsity swimmer during his sophomore year. A Separate Peace is based upon Knowles 's experiences at Phillips Exeter Academy. The setting for The Devon Woolbert School is a thinly veiled fictionalization of Phillips Exeter Academy. The plot should not be taken as autobiographical, although many elements of the novel stem from personal experience, including Knowles ' membership in a secret society and sustaining of a foot injury while jumping from a tree during society exercises. In his essay A Special Time, A Special Place Knowles wrote:
“The only elements in A Separate Peace which were not in that summer were anger, violence, and hatred. There was only friendship, athleticism, and loyalty.”
Following his time at Phillips Exeter, Knowles spent eight months serving in the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II after which he attended Yale. Early in Knowles 's career, he wrote for the Hartford Courant and was assistant editor for Holiday magazine, while he concurrently began writing novels, of which he eventually completed seven.
A Separate Peace was first published in London by Secker and Warburg in 1959. The novel was published in New York in 1960 by Macmillan. Knowles 's other significant works are Morning in Antibes, Double Vision: American Thoughts Abroad, Indian Summer, The Paragon, and Peace Breaks Out. None of these later works were as well received as A Separate Peace.
As a resident of Southampton, New York, Knowles wrote seven novels, a book on travel, and a collection of stories. He was the winner of the William Faulkner Award and the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In his later years, Knowles lectured to university audiences.
Knowles died in 2001, at the age of 75 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Comparison of John Knowles to Gene Forrester
The author John Knowles, like his narrator Gene, was from the south (West Virginia), and sent off to an upper-class boarding school in New England for polish before university. However, unlike Gene, Knowles was no academic whiz at boarding school; he came close to flunking out of school, and was never the genius student that Gene is portrayed as being.
The novel A Separate Peace is a largely autobiographical work, drawing on Knowles ' experience at Exeter to create the Devon school.
Like Gene, Knowles attended a summer session at school to make up some classes; however, the year was 1943, not 1942, as it is in his novel. Other than that, the summer session that Knowles describes in the book was very similar to the summer session that he attended at Exeter. "We really did have a club whose members jumped from the branch of a very high tree into the river as initiation," Knowles has said of his book: "the only elements in A Separate Peace which were not in that summer were anger, envy, violence, and hatred." In Knowles ' far more benevolent summer, "There was only friendship, athleticism, and loyalty." But the atmosphere at Exeter was similar to what he describes for Devon; they both share an old, ivy-covered campus, with great beautiful trees, and the same New England weather. The summers at Exeter and the fictional Devon were also similar in their carefree atmosphere, their warm, summery beauty, and in the amount of enjoyment the handful of students took from these …show more content…
summers.
Phineas, like Gene, also had a real counterpart; Knowles based the character on David Hackett, who was actually a student at a different school, Milton Academy. However, David was at Exeter for the summer session on which the novel is based, and was a founding member of the Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session, which was a real club, and very much like the one described in the novel. David and Knowles were not roommates, but lived across the hall, and became very close as the session progressed. David was a good friend of Bobby Kennedy, and later held a position with Bobby in the Justice department. Whether Gene 's jealousy of and competitiveness with Finny was also based on the relationship on David Hackett and John Knowles is unknown, though Knowles, through his own description of the summer session on which his book is based, would seem to defuse any such theory.
Knowles has admitted that "it is true that I put part of myself into all four main characters in A Separate Peace: Phineas, Gene, Leper, and Brinker." Brinker, like Phineas and Gene, had a real-life source in Gore Vidal, who was a top-notch student at Exeter during the time that Knowles was a student. Although he and Gore were not close friends during their time at school, Knowles does believe in retrospect that he did a good job in refining the essence of who he believed Gore Vidal to be, into the character of Brinker. Leper has no particular model according to Knowles, but is an amalgamation of a certain type of person whom he runs across repeatedly.
The tragedy of Finny 's death was modelled on the death of Bob Tait, a student at Exeter who died in the same manner, on the operating table and as a result of bone marrow escaping into the blood-stream. Knowles was saddened by these events as a senior at the school, and knew Tait to be a kind and gentle person, much as Finny is in the book.
The war had as much of an impact on Exeter life as it did at Devon; Knowles has discussed, as Gene does in the book, how teachers were drawn away from the school by the war effort, and how the students began doing a great many things "for the war." Knowles, like Gene, also had to suffer through the ordeal of crowded, late trains to get back to school. Unlike Gene, however, Knowles was a decently good athlete, participating mostly in swimming; he never achieved the superhuman feats that Finny attains in the novel, but he was no slouch either.
Although the book is mostly based on real events from Knowles ' life, still remember that this book is not a work of non-fiction. Knowles himself says that the characters, even those that he bases on real people, are a jumble of different traits and qualities, and many of the dramatic conflicts of the book are not based upon real events, but were invented for the sake of the story. The inspiration and the fuel for Knowles ' book was taken directly from his own life experience, but this does not mean that it is solely Knowles ' experience that makes up the meat of the events of the book.
Stephen Chbosky
“So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we 'll never know most of them. But even if we don 't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”
– Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Background of Stephen Chbosky
Stephen Chbosky is an American novelist, screenwriter, and film director best known for writing the coming of age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999), as well as for screenwriting and directing the film version of the same book, starring Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, and Ezra Miller. He also wrote the screenplay for the 2005 film Rent, and was co-creator, executive producer, and writer of the CBS television series Jericho, which began airing in 2006.
Chbosky was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and raised in the Pittsburgh suburb of Upper St. Clair, Pennsylvania. He is the son of Lea (née Meyer), a tax preparer, and Fred G. Chbosky, a steel company executive and consultant to CFOs. Chbosky has a sister, Stacy. He was raised Catholic. As a teenager, Chbosky "enjoyed a good blend of the classics, horror, and fantasy." He was heavily influenced by J. D. Salinger 's novel The Catcher in the Rye and the writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Tennessee Williams. Chbosky graduated from Upper St. Clair High School in 1988, around which time he met Stewart Stern, screenwriter of the 1955 James Dean film Rebel without a Cause. Stern became Chbosky 's "good friend and mentor", and proved a major influence on Chbosky 's career.
In 1992, Chbosky graduated from the University of Southern California 's screenwriting program. He wrote, directed, and acted in the 1995 independent film The Four Corners of Nowhere, which got Chbosky his first agent, was accepted by the Sundance Film Festival, and became one of the first films shown on the Sundance Channel. In the late 1990s, Chbosky wrote several unproduced screenplays, including ones titled Audrey Hepburn 's Neck and Schoolhouse Rock.
In 1994, Chbosky was working on a "very different type of book" than The Perks of Being a Wallflower when he wrote the line, "I guess that 's just one of the perks of being a wallflower”. Chbosky recalled that he "wrote that line. And stopped. And realized that somewhere in that was the kid I was really trying to find." After several years of gestation, Chbosky began researching and writing The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a novel that follows the intellectual and emotional maturation of a teenager who uses the alias Charlie over the course of his freshman year of high school. The book is semi-autobiographical; Chbosky has said that he "relate(s) to Charlie (...) But my life in high school was in many ways different."
The book, Chbosky 's first novel, was published by MTV Books in 1999, and was an immediate popular success with teenage readers; by 2000, the novel was MTV Books ' best-selling title, and The New York Times noted in 2007 that it had sold more than 700,000 copies and "is passed from adolescent to adolescent like a hot potato". Wallflower also stirred up controversy due to Chbosky 's portrayal of teen sexuality and drug use. The book has been removed from circulation in several schools and appeared on the American Library Association 's 2006 and 2008 lists of the 10 most frequently challenged books.
In 2000, Chbosky edited Pieces, an anthology of short stories. The same year, he worked with director Jon Sherman on a film adaptation of Michael Chabon 's novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, though the project fell apart by August 2000. Chbosky wrote the screenplay for the 2005 film adaptation of the Broadway rock musical Rent, which received mixed reviews. In late 2005, Chbosky said that he was writing a film adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
In the mid-2000s, Chbosky decided, on the advice of his agent, to begin looking for work in television in addition to film. Finding he "enjoyed the people (he met who were working) in television", Chbosky agreed to serve as co-creator, executive producer, and writer of the CBS serial television drama Jericho, which premiered in September 2006. The series revolves around the inhabitants of the fictional small town of Jericho, Kansas in the aftermath of several nuclear attacks. Chbosky has said the relationship between Jake Green, the main character, and his mother, reflected "me and my mother in a lot of ways". The first season of Jericho received lacklustre ratings, and CBS cancelled the show in May 2007. A grassroots campaign to revive the series convinced CBS to renew the series for a second season, which premiered on February 12, 2008, before being cancelled once more in March 2008.
Chbosky wrote the screenplay and directed the film The Perks of Being a Wallflower, based on his novel. Production took place in mid-2011, and the film was released in fall 2012. It starred Logan Lerman, Ezra Miller, and Emma Watson. Chbosky was nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for the 2013 Writers Guild Awards.
Chbosky currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
Comparison of Stephen Chbosky to Charlie
Stephen Chbosky was interviewed on his influences in The Perks of being a Wallflower www.hmoverflow.com, and the information within the interview was relevant to my first focussing question, so I decided to leave the formatting as I found it.
An interview with Stephen Chbosky discussing the influences on the novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower:
Q: How did you develop the protagonist, Charlie? Did he have any relation to your adolescence?
A.
"The truth is, I wrote the book for very personal reasons, and I’ve been very happy to see how many people have been able to relate to it. Especially the comments on Amazon.com. They really blow me away. In response to your questions, I didn’t so much develop Charlie as Charlie came to me. I had been thinking about this story for around five years: these images of a kid standing up in a tunnel and this girl he finds beautiful. And these parties he goes to. All these details. And then one Saturday morning when I was going through a hard time, all of these impressions just clicked. I woke up. Sat down. Wrote the first line. And in a month, I had half the book. I took a few months off, then finished the book in six more weeks. In terms of it relating to my adolescence, I’ve always said that the book is very personal to me, but it isn’t necessarily autobiographical – not in the literal sense of the word anyway. I do relate to Charlie. But my life in high school was in many ways different."
Q: What gave you the idea for the book in the first place? Do you see the world the way Charlie does?
A: "I do see life the way Charlie does. Actually, it was writing the book that made me understand I had so many of these thoughts and feelings about people and the
world.
The idea for the book started in school. I was writing a very different type of book then, and in it, the narrator says, "I guess that’s just one of the perks of being a wallflower." I wrote that line. And stopped. And I realized that somewhere in that title—the perks of being a wallflower – was the kid I was really trying to find. I stopped writing the book I was working on. And five years later, I wrote Perks."
Q: The only subjects I found in literature for guys were on war and violence. Your book was the one written about guys and their feelings about growing up. Why do you think teen popular fiction is mainly aimed at girls? Why aren’t there books for guys that cover subjects outside of war and violence? What books did you like to read as a teen? What do you like to read now?
A: "I asked my publishers the same question, and one woman told me that popular fiction for teens is mainly aimed at girls because they are the ones who buy it. Simple as that. It’s not to say guys don’t buy books. But most of them like fantasy or horror or war books. Nobody knows why. That’s just been the norm for a while. In terms of the books I liked as a teen, I enjoyed a good blend of the classics, horror and fantasy. My favourites were The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Death of a Salesman, The Shining, The Hobbit and Hamlet. The books I like now depend. I still favour the classics: The Sun Also Rises, Crime and Punishment, 1984, Portnoy’s Complaint. But I also love page-turners, especially Stephen King. The Stand is still one of my favourite books of all time. And Boy Wonder by James Robert Baker is still the funniest book I’ve ever read."
Q: Charlie reads The Catcher in the Rye many times over. When reviewers say that your style of writing seems similar to that of J.D. Salinger’s, did you do this on purpose?
A: "It’s hard to talk about The Catcher in the Rye, because it’s such an American classic. I do love the book. It was one of my favourites growing up. But honestly, I hadn’t read it for years when I wrote The Perks of Being a Wallflower. And as much as J.D. Salinger was an influence on me, as was F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tennessee Williams, screenwriter Stewart Stern, and countless others, I was not trying to mimic his style as a writer. I did, in part, reference The Catcher in the Rye as a tribute. But no more than This Side of Paradise, On the Road, and a host of other books that I loved growing up. I can see how people could compare Charlie to Holden Caulfield. At the same time, I think they are very different people with unique problems and perspectives."
Personal Analysis
It is clear that the backgrounds of my three authors have indeed influenced the main characters in their novels. They all seem to be somewhat autobiographical works, however this is more apparent in my analysis of The Catcher in the Rye. The Perks of being a Wallflower and A Separate Peace seem to be more along the lines of being a combination of thoughts of the author and the people that the authors based there characters on.
It is apparent in The Catcher in the Rye; Salinger’s history is extremely similar to the background of Holden’s. For example, they both went to several private schools, most of which they were kicked out of.
A Separate Peace and The Perks of being a Wallflower are based more on the thoughts of the thoughts of their authors rather than real life experiences. Chbosky says that he does relate to Charlie, and he knew how Charlie would be before he wrote the book. He does find the book personal to him, but his experiences in high school were a lot different.
A Separate Peace is largely autobiographical. However, not quite in the same context as J.D. Salinger and Holden Caulfield. John Knowles and Gene Forrester do have a lot of similarities, such as their origins, schooling, etc. However, Knowles says that he put himself into all four of the characters in his book (Gene, Phineas, Leper and Brinker), but after analysing the text and the authors background, it is apparent that more of himself was put into Gene than the others.
So the answer to my first focussing question is this: Yes, the backgrounds of the authors of The Catcher in the Rye, The Perks of being a Wallflower and A Separate Peace did influence the main characters of their novels. The areas of where John Knowles and J.D. Salinger came from were the same as the main characters in their novels, whereas the thoughts and feelings of Stephen Chbosky were similar to his main character, Charlie. Whether it be the physical or psychological background of the authors, these works are all very autobiographical.
2. What are the similarities/differences between the main characters in three coming of age novels- The Catcher in the Rye, The Perks of being a Wallflower and A Separate Peace?
Holden Caulfield – Character Analysis
Holden Caulfield is one of the most interesting and confusing characters in all of literature. He is the seventeen year old narrator and protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Holden tells the story of a weekend spent in New York after he was kicked out of his fourth school for bad grades and a lack of effort. Holden is a very opinionated boy who has been related to by teenagers over the last 60 years. Throughout the book, he begins to understand that childhood innocence cannot be protected forever and everybody must learn to grow up at some point in their lives. Holden is unique in many ways. Unfortunately, his many weaknesses that are brought to centre stage throughout this novel overpower his strengths.
Besides being irresponsible, Holden has a unique type of self-inflicted loneliness. Most lonely people prefer hiding away by themselves and are too shy to have a lot of human-interactions. Holden is the complete opposite; he makes it clear that he is lonely by openly making plans with other people every chance that he can get. He is always disappointed by others. For example, Holden says this statement; "almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad". This reversal of a stereotype is much like a depressed person always acting happy to avoid being noticed. Holden states that he is lonely too many times to count in the book. He desperately interacts with other people to full fill his longing for a person he enjoys being with. He seems to be lonely because he isolates himself from the world of "phonies" which is basically everyone he meets.
One of Holden 's traits that is often overlooked by readers is his outgoing and eccentric personality. Holden is a very good conversationalist when he is with other people, even when he is with someone he says he does not like. One day Holden sets up a date with Sally Hayes to see a theater production. Before the date, he admits that he does not overly enjoy being with her. Then during the date, he tells her he loves her and asks her to run away to the west with him and live together. This event shows how eccentric Holden really is. Part of the reason he is eccentric is because he is so desperate and lonely that he will do anything with anyone as long as he is not alone.
One way to understand Holden 's unique combination of weaknesses is to look at the traumatic events in his childhood, most importantly the death of his brother, Allie. How Holden reacted to his brother 's death, by smashing all of the windows in the garage that night, shows that this event has had the most impact of any on his life. Holden receives another taste of death when he is in the dorm during the death of James Castle. Because of these horrific events, Holden is plagued with thoughts of mortality throughout this novel. Holden deals with his own mortality in a unique way; he does not seem to care about the direction of his life at times and seems to possess almost a death wish. He even talks about suicide after the depressing Sally Hayes incident, saying "I 'm sort of glad they 've got the atomic bomb invented. If there 's ever another war, I 'm going to set right the hell on top of it. I 'll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will".
Overall, Holden Caulfield remains lost the entire book and never finds his straight path in life. He does not have much of a future in store for him at this point in his young life. When Holden travels home and talks to his younger sister, Phoebe, he finds a shining sliver of hope in life. This exemplifies a strong point in his character which is the never-dying urge to keep trying to find happiness. Unfortunately, his weaknesses overpower his strengths in the end, causing his life to spiral out of control.
Gene Forrester – Character Analysis
Gene is the narrator and protagonist of A Separate Peace. He suffers from many of the ailments that I and my friends are familiar with as teenagers: self-consciousness, uncertainty, jealousy, an identity crisis or two. Telling the story from his perspective, he recounts his own growth into adulthood — a struggle to face and acknowledge his fundamental nature and to learn from a single impulsive act that irrevocably shapes his life.
As a southerner, Gene feels like a stranger in a northern landscape. Attending an elite New England boarding school, he tries to romanticize and inflate his background by hanging pictures of plantations on his wall, hoping to impress fellow students as a southern aristocrat.
A solid but not a brilliant student who succeeds through discipline, obedience, and conventional thinking, Gene at once admires and envies Finny, his roommate, for whom athletic — if not scholastic — success comes so easily. Gene must work hard for everything he attains, and so he resents the ease of Finny 's physical ability and the graceful spontaneity with which he engages life.
By his very nature, Gene conforms and embraces the conventional. In contrast to Finny, he wants to follow the rules — spoken and unspoken — as if in a kind of lock-step. His "West Point stride," for example, suggests this tendency toward conformity — even, potentially, the military conformity that looms before all the boys at Devon.
With tragic consequences, Gene 's conformity brings him into conflict with rebellious Finny, but his natural reserve prevents him from expressing his feelings openly and directly. As a result, Gene 's anger churns within him and emerges in unconscious forms — a "bending of the knees," for instance, that shakes the limb of the tree at the critical moment and causes Finny to fall.
Yet, as much as Gene resents Finny 's freedom, he needs him to become a complete human being. Over the course of the story, Gene functions as Finny 's opposite — but he also becomes his double. At the end of the novel, Gene gratefully accepts the forgiveness of his friend, whose death he mourns in silence, as he readies himself to face the world without resentment or fear.
Charlie Kelmeckis– Character Analysis
He is the main character of this book as well as the narrator. He starts to write to an anonymous person who he feels that he could trust with all his secrets and distress. In this book, he starts as a freshman in high school. His best friend, Michael, committed suicide and left him alone to face high school. Then, he meets Patrick and Sam who are both seniors in high school. They introduced him to new things such as drugs, music, sex and so on. He turned from a innocent boy to a person with more experience and maturity. During the book, Charlie has a crush on Sam yet he knows that he shouldn’t. Furthermore, he meets a girl named Mary Elizabeth who he starts to grow feelings toward. They eventually have a more intimate relationship with each other. His friends call him a wallflower because of he just hangs around and observes things.
Charlie exposes his story through letters sent to an unknown “friend”. He explains his fears, problems, secrets and joys to this stranger. Charlie is a high school freshman from Western Pennsylvania that is suffering through the aftermath of his best friend’s suicide, the death of his favourite Aunt, Helen, all aside from being a "wallflower".
Throughout the novel, Charlie develops from an innocent ‘wallflower’ that lived in books to an adventurous, befriended high school freshman that learns that life needs to be lived not watched. Sam and Patrick show Charlie the perks of being a wallflower.
Personal Analysis
It is clear to me after analysing these three characters, Holden Caulfield, Gene Forrester and Charlie Kelmeckis, that they are all very similar people.
For example, the similarities are as follows:
Within the storyline of each novel, what are the main influences on the main characters’ attitudes towards the idea of “coming of age”, and how are these attitudes expressed?
Conclusion
During my research I have learnt a great deal about the authors J.D. Salinger, John Knowles and Stephen Chbosky and their pasts, and how they have or have not influenced the main characters in their novels, The Catcher in the Rye, A Separate Peace and The Perks of being a Wallflower.
J.D. Salinger was the son of a Jewish man and an Irish-Catholic woman, who struggled to keep up his grades whilst at school and later went on to fight in the War.
He has many similarities with the main character of his novel, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield. These similarities include there reclusiveness, being affected by the war effort and mixed feelings about Catholics.
John Knowles and his main character, Gene Forrester from his novel A Separate Peace, don’t have as many similarities as J.D. Salinger and Holden Caulfield. However, they do have some similarities such as they were both brought up in West Virginia and went to private schools. But, unlike Gene, Knowles was no academic whiz, but was similar to the supplementary character Finny “Phineas”, in the respect that he was a decent swimmer.
The final author, Stephen Chbosky, admits that he does see the world similarly to his main character Charlie, but doesn’t consider his novel The Perks of being a Wallflower to be autobiographical. He says that he does have a few similarities, but his high school experience was very different.
This whole research assessment has opened my eyes to the idea of coming of age, and how it affects youths differently, even if they characters I have learnt it off are fictional.
It is something that doesn’t come lightly to all, and is relevant to myself, and my peers.
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Bibliography References: www.litcharts.com www.wikipedia.com www.hmoverflow.com www.goodreads.com www.shmoop.com www.blog.lib.umn.edu www.answers.yahoo.com www.bookish.com