SANFORD PINSKER ON THE PROTAGONIST-NARRATOR

By Chris and Kieran

CITATION IN MLA FORMAT

Pinsker, Sanford. “Sanford Pinsker on the Protagonist Narrator”. 82-86. Print.

THE RHETORICAL SITUATION

The audience is aimed towards who as read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye. It was created to contrast the differences and similarities between the two protagonist narrators, Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield.

PURPOSE

The main purpose of this essay was to educate the readers and highlight the similarities between and differences between Holden Caulfield and Huck Finn as two protagonist narrators.

AUTHOR MESSAGE

The main message that the author is trying to get across with his essay is that although there are many similarities between Holden and Huck it would not be completely accurate to compare Salinger’s novel as Twain’s Mississippi reflected on the streets of Manhattan.

EVIDENCE

“In both cases what amuses the innocence with which the respective protagonist tried to put on a good face on what we as readers recon to be embarrassing moments. at the same time, however, even sophisticated readers remember similar episodes from their own lives and rather then censure Huck or Holden, they are likely to be sympathetic and forgiving.”

“Huck and Holden share a condition of being protagonist in death haunted novels”

“Hardly a page of either book is sparred the taint of mortality, whether it expresses itself in the chivalric rhetoric of the Grangerfords or on Holden’s exam essay on the Egyptian mummies, in the grizzly specter of Buck or in the haunting memories of Allie”

MORE EVIDENCE

“Besides obsession with death, Huck and Holden also share in the loneliness that stems inextricably from there respective broodings and that is built into there retrospective narratives. Often in comparable novels like Moby-Dick, only Ishmael, a novel’s protagonist narrator, escapes to tell his tale. In other cases like Nick Carraway in The Great Gats-dog, the protagonist narrators experiences have been so traumatic, so fundamentally altering, that they no longer ‘see’ the world as others do”

“ The Catcher in the Rye then fairly aches to be read as an urban twentieth century variant of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, those readers who saw Twain’s Mississippi on Manhattan were not essentially wrong. The protagonist narrators of both novels filter experience through there respective sensibilities, make bids for our undivided attention, and, in affect, do what they can to walk off with the whole show.”

TONE

The essay is written in a formal and educational tone.

LANGUAGE AND STYLE

The genre of this novel is educationel and informative to the reader.

ORGANIZATION

This essay was organized into basic paragraphs, it has stellar organization which makes it quite the easy essay to read.

OPINION

In our opinion, this essay was very educational, but would be much better read and understood by someone who has read both The Catcher in the Rye and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.