Axelle Rigaudy
English 9AB
Mr Hambley
27 October 2004
Essay on First Person Narrative
Christopher and Holden
Holden from “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D Salinger and Christopher from “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon are both two very interesting first person narrators in many different ways. Holden is a 17years old boy having difficulty staying in schools more than 6 months because he doesn’t work enough and Christopher is 15 years old and has asperger’s syndrome. This means that he has no feelings. The narrators are similar in some ways for example in the way of talking; they both have a restricted vocabulary. But there are more differences than similarities for instance Holden’s favourite subject is English because he is creative and Christopher prefers math and science since he seems to like facts. Their lives are very different and this is proven in their totally opposite personalities. Even though Christopher and Holden have semblances, Holden’s creativity and personality makes him a more appealing narrator.
Although Christopher has a unique way of talking, we can relate more to Holden’s vocabulary and diction, which makes the reader understand him better. When looking at the similarities, both of these first person narrators make detailed descriptions, but usually on very different topics. Christopher’s descriptions are mainly about details that a normal person would not care about, such as the shape of the room he is in, and how many litres of air there is in it or how many holes there are in a shoe. Holden’s descriptions are more on his surroundings and the atmosphere. Christopher’s sentence structure includes short and choppy sentences, rarely using comas when he is not talking about facts. He uses only “and”, “but” and “because” as conjunctions in his writing, this makes his style unvaried and tends to be monotonous. Holden and Christopher are both informal in their tone, though Christopher doesn’t use any slang or swearing, while Holden uses them widely, for instance “That sonuvabitch…..”(“The Catcher in the Rye”)(24). Both of these two narrators have a restricted vocabulary, repeating their words over and over again, for example Holden’s uses “boy” very often. He also has a jumpy style of writing, he will be talking about something and change the subject completely or remember that he has to tell the reader something else “I forgot to tell you about that…” (“The Catcher in the Rye”)(7). Holden’s tone of voice is frequently sarcastic whereas Christopher never uses sarcasm because it is a feeling and he cannot understand feelings due to his illness. Christopher sometimes uses similes, but when he is using them, he compares himself for instance with machinery “I sometimes think my mind as a machine but not always as a bread slicing machine. It makes it easier to explain to other people what is going inside.” (“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”)(8). This shows his need to make comparison, but because of his lack of imagination he has to restrict himself to what he knows.
