On the surface, Holden Caulfield, a dejected surly teenager, from J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Oskar Schell, an outgoing nine-year-old boy, from Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close could not be more different. However, both boys have undeniable connections to New York City, distinct and arguably crazy personalities, and take journeys sparked by grief and led by misconception. These parallels are what make these two boys a lot more alike than what meets the eye.
Both main characters from J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close live in one of the most diverse settings for a book: New York City, and both have strong connections with the city itself.
[...] He has a specific purpose of visiting all of the people in New York with the last name of Black in order to find the origin of his father's key. He has a set plan of where he will be each day, while Holden changes locations on a whim. After eight months of searching, Oskar finds the lock that belongs to the key. However, the outcome to his search is not what he expects. The irony of Oskar's expedition occurs when he finds the owner of the key someone he's never met before who is in no way affiliated with his father. [...]
[...] Catcher in the Rye On the surface, Holden Caulfield, a dejected surly teenager, from J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Oskar Schell, an outgoing nine-year- old boy, from Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close could not be more different. However, both boys have undeniable connections to New York City, distinct and arguably crazy personalities, and take journeys sparked by grief and led by misconception. These parallels are what make these two boys a lot more alike than what meets the eye. [...]
[...] Both of the boys feel that the ‘help' they are receiving, Holden's psychiatric hospital in California and Oskar's visits with Dr. Fein, are pointless (Catcher 3). The similarities between these characters is also apparent in the way they express their feelings. Catcher is full of Holden's repetitive use of words like ‘crumby', ‘goddam', and the phrase ‘that just about killed me'. Oskar, being nine, uses the slightly more juvenile phrase ‘heavy boots' to describe his sad feelings. All of these phrases become signature of the characters because of their recurrence. [...]
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