Bildungsroman is a term which denotes a novel of selfdevelopment through education and formation within its coming-of-age. J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Stephen Chbosky’s the Perks of Being a Wallflower both depict a main character that has a troubling and lonely life due to sudden changes in life which focuses on how the character can mentally and physically cope with it.
The themes that are depicted in the novel include Alienation as a form of selfprotection as Holden continually attempts to find his way around the world in which he doesn’t belong in and feels trapped on the “other side” of life quoted by Mr Spencer who is Holden’s teacher. In the beginning of the novel, Holden is perceived as a lonely person who doesn’t fit in and feels out of place, we then later perceive that his way of protecting himself from getting hurt is to alienate himself and disconnect with the rest of the world.
This is evident as his way of separating himself from others is to where his distinct hunting hat which advertises his uniqueness, the hat symbolises Holden’s individuality and it shows how he desires to be different from everyone. Therefore, the hat mirrors the central conflict as Holden’s need for isolation vs his need for companionship. It is clearly evident that Holden can’t interact with other people as it confuses and overwhelm him in such a way that alienating himself is the source of little stability he has in life.
Alienation is the main cause of his pain as he usually doesn’t address his emotions directly nor attempting to discover them. Although he prefers to be alone we see that he needs love amongst others but his ignorance prevents him from looking for friends although he depends upon alienation, but it destroys him. Holden Caulfied was first seen as a troubled and unreliable because he fails out of 4 schools until he explains the death of his brother which we feel sympathetic.
One of Holden’s traits includes how he’s judgemental about almost everything, he criticizes and philosophizes about people who are boring, people who are insecure, and, above all, people who are “phony” as he applies the term as people, who are too typical instead of those who are insincere. This is evident where he describes people who dress and act like the other members of their social class and he implies that people are superficial and the use of it is that it indicates his own perception of other people as superficial.
There is inner conflict between Holden and his mind as part of him wants to connect with others while part of him rejects this as it is “phony” and to reminisce about childhood. The rising action includes his many attempts to connect with people throughout the novel which bring his conflicting impulses either to interact as an adult, or to treat them as a child. Similarly, The Perks of being a wallflower explores the theme individualism as Charlie wants to fit in but being an introvert teenager, he doesn’t know how.
With the use of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead which is an influential novel that advocates individualism and is warned by his Mentor that he must filter the book. This is evident when Charlie began a relationship with Mary Elizabeth however Sam, who is his close friend, tells him if he had acted on his feelings towards her, things could have been different between them. In the novel, each of the character represents a facet of Charlie’s personality as he admires to be like Sam though he likes Patrick’s sharp wit. The book is a series of letters that is sent to a “friend” of Charlie’s which is written in first person narrative.
When Charlie’s life has drama in it, it is almost impossible to put down the book. The letters are for expressing his ideas so he doesn’t take effective use of creative language and finds it pointless writing words that one wouldn’t even understand as opposed to his teacher criticising for writing run on sentences. Charlie is a timid and introverted character who had bad things happen with the death of his best friend committing suicide and his aunt getting hit by a car and being an outcast at school are only a fraction of “the bad things”.
He was a socially awkward person and didn’t take part in anything around him and Charlie is an extremely emotional person because he was quite traumatised due to the death of his best friend and aunt. Despite the past, he can be considered as a “normal” student as he loved music, movies and books as these were sort of like his own world and getaway from life. The conflict that Charlie faces is Man vs self as his actions speak different to what he thinks and his major problem is himself as this is evident with his relationship with Mary Elizabeth as Charlie stayed with her so that she wouldn’t get hurt.