The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, published in 1945, and The Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel, and published in 2001, both focus on a teenage boy going on an adventure. The adventures each boy face are very different but also have many themes in common. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield gets kicked out of school and decides to stay in New York for a few days before the end of the semester, he discovers many things and has many new experiences. In The Life of Pi, while Pi and his family are moving to Canada from India by boat, the boat sinks in a storm which leaves Pi alone on a lifeboat with a bengal tiger. After many challenges and difficulties Pi eventually does make it to Canada where he lives out his life. The thing that makes these two …show more content…
Although these two books are very different from each other, the authors use perspective in the same way. Many factors in both The Catcher in the Rye and The Life of Pi help to limit the reader’s perspective so that he/she can only see one view. The author’s limit the reader’s perspective so that they have to look beyond the words of the narrator to understand the protagonists’ behaviour. The author’s use unreliable narration, isolation, and first person voice to achieve this.

It is hard to know whether one can believe the narrator of each story or not because both Pi and Holden have had some hard and traumatizing events happen to them. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s brother Allie died a number of years ago and it could still be affecting him psychologically and the fact that he has just been kicked out of school could affect his view on the world as well. Holden is an unreliable narrator, near the beginning of the book he says, “I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life,” (Salinger, 22), he then goes on to explain that he can lie about almost anything. In other words he can make anything seem believable. The reader can only experience the book through