Esther and Holden

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.