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Dead Poets Catcher Inthe Rye

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Dead Poets Catcher Inthe Rye
Dead Poets Society/Catcher in the Rye

The Catcher in the Rye and Dead Poets Society are very similar stories. Both deal with the coming of age in the lives of prestigious young men. These two stories also deal with the conformity of these young men in their transition from private boys school to the real world. There are two young men from each of the stories whose lives are alike yet different in some ways. Holden Caufield and Neil Perry are two young men coming of age searching for who they are and what they want to be in life and wanting to escape the confines of conformity and what they are expected to be. Both are the same age or around the same age and they are both students at upscale private schools for boys. They both come from fairly wealthy families whose parents are estranged in one way or another. In Dead Poets Society Keating urges his students to seize the day and that is sort of what Holden does when he goes off wandering the streets of New York when he is kicked out of school. Neil seizes the day when he decides to go against his father’s demands and acts in the play. Both stories also emphasize the trueness of one’s character. Holden Caufield is a troubled young man. He has been kicked out of prep school for the third time. He alienates himself from his peers and the world around him. I think Holden fails every class except English not because he is not smart, but because he doesn’t want to be like everyone else or what is expected of him. He feels most people are phony but in a way Holden is a phony too. He says cruel things about people such as Ackley yet he still want to be around and hang out with him. If one dislikes a person so much yet still wants to be in his presence that is a phony trait. He stresses the fact that he hates movies yet he talks about going to catch a movie every chance he gets and he even acts out his own movie scenes. He makes up an entire lie about who he is to Earnest’s mother on the train and tells

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