The Catcher in the Rye and Brown Girl

Selina Boyce and Holden Caulfield are the hero and the heroine of this thesis. The two adolescents come from different backgrounds, different families and even from different ethnicities. The things they have in common, though, are not less significant: they both live in New York and they both have to struggle with the problems of adolescence. In their phase of physical and mental growth these adolescents are going through various stages of dealing with the influence of their new level they enter after their innocent lives as children. Experience versus innocence is what makes the phase of adolescence so confusing and the adults-to-be need to find ways of getting through and over these crises. This is the point of separation for our two heroes. This is the point where the difference between black and white comes in.