J.D. Salinger’s novel entitled Catcher in the Rye and Burr Steer’s movie called “Igby Goes Down”

are always being compared for both possess the theme of youth and its attendant angst, rebellion,

non-conformism and selfishness. In the Catcher in the Rye, our protagonist is Holden Caulfield,a 16

year old lad who ran away from prep school after he has been expelled. The book mainly revolved

about his endless narrative and commentary of all the people he had encountered since he ran

away. Igby Goes Down, on the other hand, is about Jayson “Igby” Slocumb, 17 years old who came

from a wealthy family but became fed up of his family’s “hypocrisy” and chose to run away.

These two are often speculated as two pieces of the same pie but this is actually easily seen in

the similarities of the two protagonists. They both ran away because their family and school are

already too much to handle and they began to pin hopes that somewhere far away, everything can

be better. Although both possess this sentiment, Igby and Holden handled it in a different way.

While Igby is an intellectual lad who boasts around about finding the true meaning of life, Holden is

a teenager who whines and curses too much and finds everybody else as phonies and jerks, except

for her little sister who he cares for. Igby’s narrative is somewhat comic while Holden’s is morbid.

Both do not really have particular plans in life when they ran away. They literally went with the

flow, went on to wherever the circumstances took them. For Igby, this meant military school,

working for his father/godfather D.H. and a summer in Manhattan. For Holden, this meant visiting

his former old professor, staying at a hotel for days and going home to check out her little sister.

Both characters also hated their brother. Igby hated his older brother because he