This is an essay that I wrote for my AP Literature class:
The
Real Rebel
As the saying goes, “everybody loves a rebel,” and while
that could often be the case, Holden Caulfied, from J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, seems to be the
counterexample to that rule, while David, from Gary Ross’s Pleasantville, another rebel from the 1950s, seems to experience
the opposite reaction for his rebellious actions. Why could this be happening?
One reason for the vastly different reactions for the
rebels roots itself in the actions that Holden and David make as rebels; David
making a concentrated effort, and Holden just thinking it in his head. It’s no surprise that people rally behind the
ideals that David puts forth for a simple fact: he actually puts forth ideals
to rally behind. Granted, he does not
immediately begin spewing inspiring speeches and taking drastic action in order
to achieve his goals, but he eventually does
something about the problems he sees (or at least, more than just erasing
F-you’s off of school walls). He takes
action against that which he is rebelling, which isn’t something that could be
said of Holden, who desperately wants to preserve innocence but seems to do
nothing about it. He could have asked Stradlater
(a friend from his school) to not go out with a childhood friend of his
(Holden’s), but instead he waits to take action against this attack on
innocence until after it has happened, or when Holden wants another schoolmate
to leave his room, but he can’t do anything past dropping hints about him
leaving. Holden is the worst kind of
rebel because he will not do anything to actually
rebel. Instead he just thinks about rebelling.
Fair warning: pimps are dangerous. They’re even more dangerous to teenage boys
who claim to be the bastions of innocence, and refuse to be cheated out of
money. Holden finds him in this exact
situation, when he argues with Maurice the Pimp, who demands that he pay twice
the agree price for not having sex with a prostitute. Holden keeps saying no, and claiming that he
paid the correct price, until the argument is settle with fisticuffs (if it
could be called that; it was much more of a swift blow to the gut), and Holden
is robbed of 5 dollars (which is quite of a sum in the 50s). Holden tries to be a rebel, and fights for
something he seems to believe in, only to be defeated painfully and decisively;
a problem that David does not have to confront. He instead is successful in practically every
single venture he attempts, and the crowd loves that. David can scare off a band of sexually
harassing mob members (not the organized crime kind) simply punching one of
them in the face, but when Holden punches people in the face, all he gets is an
injured hand and a bloody nose. People
like success, and that’s why David is more liked that Holden as a rebel; David
wins them all and Holden loses most of them.
The most key difference, however, between Holden and
David as rebels that causes this huge variant in their success and population
is rooted in that one thing that makes a rebel: a cause. It’s mostly because of what Holden fights for
and what David fights for that’s responsible for the outcomes of their stories. David, the traditional rebel (like Luke
Skywalker or William Wallace) is one that fights for freedom, change, that
which is different or strange, the cause of the common man, the “Good Fight,”
while Holden is fighting for almost the opposite reasons. Instead of fighting to break away from the
“ideal” aspects of life in romanticized 1950s America and turn toward more
modern practices, Holden maintains as a proponent of stasis and the status quo. Were Holden to have his way, everything would
be like a museum, contained in glass exhibits, unmarred and untouched by the
ebbing flow of time, and that desire to stay in the “ideal” American life loses
him support, and in that Holden becomes almost a martyr to the reader, because
he is obviously estranged from society, evident through his small (and
dwindling friend group) and constant state of rejection by others, and he is
fighting for innocence, a fleeting ideal.
Holden is therefore less popular as a rebel and idealist
than David, but only because he has become a rebel in the greatest sense:
challenging the view on rebels. Holden
is a rebel for the protection of
innocence, not the loss of it like David (just guess what happens at a place
called “Lover’s Lane”), and that is outside of the norm for what is expected
out of rebels, just like being disliked as a rebel is different from what is
typical for story rebels. Holden is more
of a rebel than David, because he’s
disliked, because he has an almost
absurd ideal, because he lacks
success in his endeavors in rebellion, and because
he often doesn’t do things to promote innocence. He is more the rebel because not only is his
cause the more noble (for is the protection of the innocent not noble?) and his
views more skewed from those considered normal, but because he seems to be a
poor rebel. Is it really rebellious if
all that’s done is a template for rebellion?
Bad Morning, by Langston Hughes
Here I sit
With my shoes mismated.
Lawdy-mercy!
I's frustrated!
Here I sit
With my shoes mismated.
Lawdy-mercy!
I's frustrated!
"Sometimes the questions are complicated, and the answers are simple." - Dr. Seuss
