Paper Summary:

Non-conformity has always been a popular topic for novels, especially those with teenagers as the protagonists. The paper shows, however, that no two books have ever better expressed all of male adolescents' contradictions and rock-solid beliefs than J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" and Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". The paper shows that although the two novels are separated by seventy years, there are still many striking similarities between Huck and Holden in their attitudes towards conformity, religion, money, lying and most importantly, escape from the lives that they feel claustrophobic in.

From the Paper:

"Both Holden Caulfield and Huck Finn refuse to conform to the rules and social mores of the society in which they are forced to live in. Although neither is exactly able to define what is wrong with their society, they know instinctively that it is wrong. Huck assumes that he is a moral reject for not accepting the beliefs that everyone swallows with absolutely no qualms, while Holden doesn't understand how people can accept such horrible beliefs merely because everyone else does. Meanwhile, they are both able to consciously say "This society is bad, it needs to change," but neither are able to affect any sort of permanent changes at all. Nor are they able to fully escape it."

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