Esther Greenwood and Holden
Caulfield are two characters in similar settings – 40s-50s New York – but beyond
that, their stories are remarkably similar. However, despite their common
mindset they have many differences, due to their differing gender expectations
and social class.
Both Esther and Holden are obsessed
with the idea of sex, but are apprehensive when faced with the opportunity to
lose their virginity – compare Holden’s experience with Sunny the prostitute to
Esther’s disgusted reaction to seeing Buddy naked. However, while Holden feels
societal pressure not to be a virgin (and doesn’t fight that expectation to a
large degree), Esther seeks to deliberately subvert society’s expectation for
her to “remain pure”. Both of them see their virginity as a burden, but they
approach it from different cultural contexts.
In their own ways, both despise
“phonies”: while Holden seems to see them everywhere he goes, Esther’s disdain
is focused primarily on Buddy Willard. Her hatred of Buddy comes from her
perception of him as a hypocrite, one who projects an image of innocence and
purity but really has been sexually “corrupted”. I wonder what Holden would
think of this particular type of hypocrisy, particularly because of his
obsession with childhood innocence.
One difference between Holden and
Esther is their attitude towards wealth. Holden comes from a very affluent
family, and while he knows it in theory, he doesn’t seem to totally grasp how
privileged he is. On the other hand, Esther is only able to afford her
expensive (Smith?) college because of a scholarship. This is perhaps the only
reason Esther didn’t end up like Holden sooner: while he doesn’t think he has
any skin in the academic game, so to speak, Esther is keenly aware that her
intellectual ability is the only thing that could give her a shot at the life
she wants. She doesn’t have the option to protest-flunk her way out of school
after school, because if she can’t afford college then she can’t get the degree
she needs to travel the world and write. As a result, she ignores her feelings
of discontent and buries them in her studies until her mental state finally
gets so bad that that option is taken away from her.
This points to a more general
difference between them: while Holden feels relatively free to express his
discontent with society, Esther feels like she must keep up the facade – at least,
the Esther we see at the beginning of the book. Salinger frames Holden’s
behavior as more of a choice (or series of choices), while Plath portrays
Esther as having an illness that takes her over and warps her judgment. We don’t
get a chance to see Holden when he (presumably) has his own breakdown and ends
up institutionalized – it would be interesting to see how his story compares to
hers then. In some ways, Holden and Esther have similar arcs, but we see them
at different points: Holden is the “before” and “after” while Esther is the “during”.
The bulk of Catcher leaves off where The Bell Jar starts to get intense:
Holden returning home after a transformative experience. The frame narrative
picks up where The Bell Jar ends:
with Holden talking to a doctor, hoping to be released into the wild again
soon.
