A Journey Towards Maturity And Identity Essays - Literature, Fiction

A Journey Towards Maturity And Identity Essays - Literature, Fiction A Journey Towards Maturity And Identity A Journey Towards Maturity and Identity Life itself is a journey full of bonding and experiences which lead to wisdom and understanding. Without maturity one may never have these life teaching experiences. This leads to an empty shell of a person never truly feeling passion, love or peace. In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck Finn is trying to find purpose and identity through his moral battle with society, while Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is an adolescent struggling to mature into manhood. In comparison they are both on a journey towards maturity and identity. Holden and Huck are similar in their threshold crossing, road of trials, and flee and return(Crispell 43). The threshold crossing is the place or the person that the character crosses over or through into the zone unknown, being the place where journey into self discovery begins(Crispell 43). Many times the call to their adventure includes going by desire, chance, abduction, or by being lured by an outside force. In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck is forced with the dilemma of whether to stay with his father and continue to be abused or to leave. Huck leaves because he desires to begin his journey. He also realizes that he will be forced to choose between his morals and his conscience, and will have to decide which of these morals to hold true(Rubenstein 23). Huck also witnesses a symbolic death. He sets up his fathers cabin to look like he was brutally murdered. He emerges from this as a runaway child and now must be careful of what he does so that he does not get caught. He tells people false aliases for himself so that no one knows his true identity. Every time Huck does this, he is symbolically dying and reemerging a more experienced person. At this point, Huck is now on his way to begin his journey into self discovery. Just like Huck, Holden also crosses over into the zone unknown, but starts his journey in a different way. Holden Caulfield is a very privileged kid. Throughout his life, his parents were able to send him to wealthy private schools hoping he would mature and begin to learn more about his own self. His call to adventure comes because he is mentally torn between experience and innocence. It would seem to him that an outside force is luring him to do something, but in actuality he is beginning his journey because of his desire. It is evident that Holden cares nothing about school and about his own education. He wants to leave so he can begin the journey of self discovery and escape the phoniness that surrounds him(Gordon 2043). Holden's symbolic death is very similar to Huck's. Holden also uses fake names, but he symbolically dies through fainting, changing the position of his red hunting hat, and his association with bathrooms. The bathroom motif, or the reoccurring appearance of the bathroom, symbolizes death for Holden because he enters bathrooms with a neurotic and pragmatic frame of mind and exits with a cleared mind. The symbolic death is what gets Holden and Huck onto their journeys and into the road of trials, where they experience many things that will change them forever. The road of trials is where most of the characters journey takes place(Crispell 43). It is on the road of trials that the character begins to experience different obstacles that will change his life forever. For Huck Finn, his learning adventure takes place on the Mississippi River. Huck finds freedom on the river and it is here that he truly learns about himself. However, he still faces problems with moral decisions of right and wrong and helping a runaway slave to achieve freedom. Huck's traveling companion is Jim. As anti- society that Huck is, you would think that he would have no qualms about helping Jim. However Huck has to have feelings that slavery is correct so we can see the ignorance of racial bigotry. Huck and Jim's journey begins as Huck fights within himself about turning Jim over to the authorities, but he decides not to. This is a monumental decision because it shows that Huck has decided to turn his back on everything home stands for, and that his true moral identity is slowly shining through. Even though Huck has made his decision about Jim, early in the voyage we see Huck's attitude change towards