While indulging in Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, a connection to another text became more and more evident. This connection was to J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, a story focused on the life of a teenager, Holden Caulfield. This boy continues to stalk around New York trying to find pleasure in prostitutes, clubs, drinking, and smoking. It’s a novel primarily of a dude with nothing to do, with nothing to live for, finding brief enjoyment in adulterous activities, and living his life as a free-going boy. This is relatable to the characters in The Great Gatsby. They luxuriate themselves in parties, drinking, and running off with others’ spouses. Such adulterous activity reveals the freedom the characters possess. A very miniscule amount of the novel explains occupations or activities of prosper; a majority revels in the pleasures of the 1920’s. Of course, The Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby differ in some aspects, one displays the life as a dark, ominous hindrance using crude language and shadowy imagery, and the other compliments the joys of life and the beauty of nature. The overall spirit of liberty is found in both novels, characters carrying out what they want, when they want, with whomever they want without conceiving possible consequences of their actions. Among other texts and real life scenarios, The Catcher in the Rye carried the same free-spirited atmosphere portrayed in The Great Gatsby.
That connection you made from The Great Gatsby to The Catcher in the Rye was very clever. I never would have thought about the two books having some sort of relationship, but you made sense of it! I really enjoyed how not only you mentioned similar events, but you really drew a relationship between Holden and all the characters in The Great Gatsby. The fact that you also mentioned the two tones in each novel really stands out from other text connections. The way you talked about the spirit of liberty in both books ties it all together, and really connects the books, and reels me in.
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