The Contradiction Of The Growth: Awakening And Confusion

Initiation as one of themes of literature is of great importance in the history of western literature. The images of children and adolescents hold a position of paramount importance in American literature. The growth of the adolescents has been one of its concerns.This thesis is a tentative endeavor to probe the hidden psychological stages behind Huck and Holden's growth and analyze the two adolescents' situations of growth from a cultural perspective in a comparative study of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye. To address that topic, Erikson's psychosocial approach is employed as a general framework for the research work.To start with, Chapter One is a literature review, sketching the authors------MarkTwain and J.D. Salinger, and briefly introducing their novels------The Adventures ofHuckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye. In addition, this part gives a brief introduction to relevant criticism on these two novels. When these two novels were published at the very beginning, they were considered as banned books because it was difficult for people to accept them. Several years later they became more and more popular in the United States and they are gradually regarded as two remarkable initiation novels in American literature. Some critics like Edgar Branch compares Huck with Holden, who also arouses great dispute in literary circle. But most of the comparisons focus on the narrative pattern and characterization of the two novels.In Chapter Two, the author tries to summarize the themes of the two works and emphasize that the central theme is the contradiction of the growth during the initiation from adolescence into adulthood in quest of searching for ego identity. Moreover the conflict in the growth of adolescence is unavoidable and it is a force to induce adolescents to become mature. "Initiation" comes from anthropology, meaning that after adolescents experience a series of difficulties and sufferings, they get autonomy and independence by requiring knowledge on society, life and trade skills. In this way, initiation is a transition from adolescence to adulthood. Identity as formed in adolescence, according to Erikson, involves finding an optimal balance between identity and role confusion; this resolution provides the initial framework through which the biological, psychological, and social demands of adult life are encountered. Chapter Three is a brief introduction to Erickson's psychosocial approach including two aspects: the principle of epigenesis and the 5^th stage of psychosocial development. The psychological issue in the 5^th stage of psychosocial development is identity versus role confusion. He views the developing person as moving through a series of eight psychosocial crises during the life span. Each crisis, although present in one form or another at all ages, takes on special significance at a given period of the life cycle because biological and social forces interact to bring the crisis of adolescence. Forging an identity, therefore, is a social process as well as a mental one.Chapter Four is a detailed comparison of the two protagonists' mental process from adolescence to adulthood. In accord with Erikson's psychosocial approach, the odyssey of Huck and Holden can be divided into four successive stages——innocence, epiphany, the loss of innocence, and maturity (awakening and confusion). The two novels barely conceal the essentially similar ways of achieving maturity in quest of ego identity. In the first stage the two protagonists are naive and innocent in their inner world while they aregreatly influenced by their surroundings------family and school. In the second stage,epiphany is a way in which two young protagonists can suddenly realize the truth of the real world. "Epiphany" is a term used in Christian theology for a manifestation of God's presence in the world. After a series of epiphanies they are determined to have an acute sense of illusion and despair and they lose their initial innocence. Up to this time, identity crisis arises in their minds. Whether they can successfully solve this crisis is the key to maturity. If they can resolve this crisis, they may escape from the conflict to become mature. Otherwise, they will be wandering in the confusion all the time.Chapter Five further analyzes the two adolescents' situations of growth from a sociocutural perspective. The vicissitudes of American society and culture endow the two adolescents' growth with different implications.Therefore, these two adolescents actually have experienced the same psychological procedure of being mature. At the very beginning they are both innocent with puberty and naivete. Huck hopes to find a new quiet place to live by escaping from his own father and being civilized; Holden tries to escape from all the phoniness in the school and decides to go to Manhattan. On the surface, both of them go on a new route to search a bright and suitable place for themselves; in fact, they want to search for their identity. But when they are on their trips, they encounter different incidents and meet different people. During those boring and painful experiences, they suddenly realize that the reality of the world is cruel, phony and totally different from what they think. They feel sad, depressed, and even in despair. Then they lose their innocence under a strong pressure from the outside environment and society. Finally, they are awake to the truth of the society they face but still feel very confused. The whole initiation of their minds can be considered as a process of searching for identity.In short, The Catcher in the Rye and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are books with strong affinities, but Holden is a modern Huck with a definable difference as Holden's odyssey of growth is the reflection of changed value-orientations and philosophical thoughts in modern American society.