Compare/Contrast Post #1: Differences Between Protagonists

I disagree with you.  Even though Phoebe is younger, I don't really think that what Holden is doing is any crazier than what Phoebe is doing.  Phoebe doesn't want to go back to school.  Holden wants to go off on his own and being a new life.  He has no plans of finishing school or making much of his life.  I definitely don't believe Holden has the maturity or ability to conduct life on his own.  Because Phoebe is so smart, it is possible that she purposely told Holden that she wanted to not go back to school in order inadvertently help her brother realize how unrealistic he was being and to convince him to stay home.


The Catcher in the Rye and Love in the Time of Cholera are very different books. For me, the differences in the novels’ protagonists really stood out.
Throughout the story, Florentino was always very focused on his goal: make Fermina his wife/lover. He went after her with everything he had. He serenaded her on the violin, he wrote her one love letter after another, he got a job and worked so he could be worthy of her, and he waited fifty years to be with her. "Fermina," Florentino said, "I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love." (p 50). Even though he wasn’t the manliest of men, Florentino refused to back down even when he was threatened by Fermina’s father, the powerful Lorenzo Daza. “‘Don't force me to shoot you,’” said Lorenzo Daza. “Florentino felt his intestines filling with cold froth. But his voice did not tremble because he felt himself illuminated by the Holy Spirit. ‘Shoot me,’ he said, with his hand on his chest. ‘There is no greater glory than to die for love’” (p 82).

In contrast, Holden didn't really have an objective that he sought after with a fiery passion. In fact, I think his experience was quite opposite. He didn’t care about school, his education, or his future and he’d been expelled from multiple schools. He rejected the world around him as being “phony.” Holden wasn’t able to create relationships due to his judgmental behavior. In the story he left his school and went off on his own, calling up girls at random, getting drunk, and conducting other kinds of questionable behavior. Holden even admitted it himself: “I don’t get hardly anything out of anything. I’m in bad shape. I’m in lousy shape” (p 131).

These two characters are very different: while Florentino has a goal that he pursues the entire book, Holden wanders around searching for something to live for.

Kai:  It is obvious these characters are different.  Do they have any similarities?