Catcher In The Rye Comparative Essay

Society has changed a lot since the beginning of humankind. Different eras has created better experiences for people of the modern world. In english, we have read many stories and personas that has been created within different time periods and has depicted different times. From times of hardship, times to times of peace. Throughout the different stories that the class has read, there have been many men and women that have challenged their roles within there society. Holden from The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger went against the normal college student stereotype of either partying all day and night, or studying nonstop for college. Jing-mei from the excerpt “Two Kinds,” from The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, went against her mother’s wishes …show more content…
She went against everything within her society and eventually won against it all. This book is set in the time of the Mexican Revolution. The standards for women at that time was to take care of her family and or husband. Tita is a girl, who was the youngest of her sisters. It is tradition that the youngest sister would not be allowed to marry and would forever have to take care of her mother until the day she died. The day she found about this was, the day Mama Elena told her that Pedro, Tita’s lover, asked her for Tita’s hand in marriage. Tita was devastated. She did everything she could to to try and break her family tradition and it seemed so did the heavens. Tita and Pedro was able to have an affair even when he was wedded to Rosaura who, is one of Tita’s sisters. Tita tried so hard to break her societal role, that it worked. Mama Elena became paralyzed from the waist down and was unable to move. This caused Tita to have to take full care of her but, Mama Elena didn’t like anything that Tita did and ended up taking an overdose of pain medication which killed her. This allowed Tita to live on her life as she chooses and not under any role that Mama Elena orders her to perform. Rosaura died of an unknown stomach problem, which allowed her to continue her relationship more freely, but without being seen by the public eye. Because of this, Tita was the most successful. She was not only able to break her …show more content…
Unfortunately, Mama Elena was not able to be successful in winning against her social normality. When Mama Elena was young, she wanted to marry a negro. This was unacceptable to both her parents and society, so her parents arranged a marriage to a man who is now known as Tita and Rosaura’s father. Mama Elena found out she was pregnant with Gertrudis because of the negro she loved. She planned on running away with him to start a free life with him. Unfortunately, he was shot and killed so she could no longer live her life the way she wanted. When Mama Elena married her ‘chosen to be,’ she had 2 other children, which were; Tita and Rosaura. Mama Elena was the least successful because she was unable to win in challenging her societal role as a woman. She was unable to change her course of life to what she wanted and to become