Comparison of The Old Man and the Sea and The Catcher in the Rye

YAY!  I am on my twenty-fifth blog!  The Old Man and the Sea and The Catcher in the rye are the two books I have read so far and I am going to compare and contrast them.  I drew a Venn diagram to help me find the similarities and differences of the two novels. 

            It is usually easier to find the differences so that is what I am going to start with.  For starters, The Old Man and the Sea was written by Ernest Hemingway while J.D. Salinger wrote The Catcher in the Rye.  The main character in The Old Man and the Sea is Santiago, who is a skinny old man.  Holden Caulfield is the main character in The Catcher in the Rye who is a teenage boy who is tall and skinny.  In the story, Santiago goes out to sea and ends up battling with a fifteen hundred pound marlin for three days.  While Santiago struggles with the fish. Holden struggles with life.  He does not want to grow up and become an adult because he does not want to the responsibilities that come with it.  Another difference is within the pages of the book.  Ernest Hemingway wrote the novel where it has no chapters so it is one continuous story.  I did not like that because it is hard to find a stopping point but it also seems much longer.  J.D. Salinger, thankfully, wrote his novel in chapters.  I find it much easier to follow along when there are chapters to stop at. 

            Out of both novels, I found only one similarity.  It is that both main characters have a younger person who keeps them grounded.  In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago has a young boy named Manolin.  Manolin helps the old man carry his things from his boat to his shack.  Along with physical support, the boy supports Santiago mentally.  In the other novel, Holden Caulfield has his younger sister, Phoebe to keep him going. 

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 1952. Print.

Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown, 1951. Print.