Loss And Return

There is nearly half a century between the publication of The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D.Salinger and A patchwork Planet written by Anne Tyler. However the protagonists in those two novels share some similarities. As a post-WWII novel, The Catcher in the Rye, as the only long novel of Salinger, suffered much criticism from the mainstream literary circle at the very beginning of its publication. Later it was recognized as one of the two classics in American literary field and enjoyed a great deal of popularity, especially among the teenagers. Through a detailed portraying of a seventeen years old boy’three-day wandering in New York city, the author makes efforts to reveal the spiritual wasteland of then society and aims to present the loneliness, disillusionment and fragmentation of individuals in the community. Meanwhile, as an initiation novel, The Catcher in the Rye, narrated by Holden Coufield, vividly exhibits the process of mental and personality maturity. The portraying of a teenager from the initial lingering, epiphany to the final maturity makes the whole novel attractive and worth reading. Struggling between the innocent childhood and the phony adulthood, Holden finally makes his own compromise.Compared with The Catcher in the Rye, Anne Tyler’s A patchwork Planet has not yet been recognized all over the world, it was published in90s in20th century. However, as a prolific female Pulitzer winner, her works were famous for the insightful observation of American middle class family, especially for the relationship between the individual and community. A patchwork Planet was published in1998is the fourteenth novel of Tyler and it is the first novel narrated by a male character, which is hardly to see in Tyler’s works. It is a story of a nearly thirty-year-old man Barnaby Gatlin who was born in an affluent family, but because of his eccentric behaviors, he was accused of breaking into others’windows and prying into their privacy. Owing to his juvenile delinquency, he was mentally separated from his family, parents and cousins. The Gatilin family has a belief of finding one’s own "Angel" to help one out of a dilemma. Therefore, the core line of the novel is a way for Barnaby to find his angel and then to realize the real self. Both in the journey of being mature, Barnaby is just similar to Holden, speaking vulgar language, being cynical to the world, persistently searching for real-self and finally returning to the mainstream society. Based on close reading and text-analysis, the thesis tries to figure out the conflict and integration between individuals and community by diagnosing the two characters and their life journeys.