The Answer Blows In The Wind

The Catcher in the Rye by twentieth century American writer Jerome David Salinger and Wild Beast by Chinese contemporary writer Wang Shuo are both classic works depicting young people who grow up during the transitional periods.Though they each have some particular emphasis on the depiction of the two protagonists---Holden and Ma Xiaojun,they both reveal the rebellion and pursuit of self-value of the adolescents during the phase of growing up.As the typical initiation stories,lying behind the two novels is both Salinger and Wang Shuo's meditation on the adolescents' living conditions,the predicaments in life,as well as the importance of choices and responsibilities,which shows their existentialist concerns and endows their works with some existentialist implications.So this thesis attempts to make a comparative study of the two novels from the perspective of existentialism,to analyze the absurdity and the anxiety and alienation experienced by the protagonists of the two novels,as well as the choices they make and the consequent different lives.This thesis is composed of three chapters.Chapter one focuses on the absurdity in the society and the anxiety over the awakening sex consciousness in the special phases of the two protagonists' growth.In chapter two the author makes a comparison of the alienation in their lives.Holden's alienation from the society results from his active rebellious behaviors against the mainstream society,while Ma,together with his peers,is passively involved in the alienation from the society.In the meantime,both the protagonists have alienated from their parents and peers.And in the last chapter,the protagonists' different choices and different lives are presented.When facing the predicaments in the course of growing up,Holden chooses to escape in the beginning but finally returns to the society and bravely takes all the responsibilities along with his free choices and then lives authentically,while Ma chooses to make himself a wild beast and shirks his responsibilities by self-deception after his fulfillment of violence and sex desire.Through the analysis we can come to a conclusion that in the course of growing up,adolescents may be trapped in some predicaments and make different choices.Bravely assuming or passively shirking the corresponding responsibilities will lead to different lives.Therefore,the more significant meaning is that we should never give up pursuing the answers.Only by making choices unremittingly and assuming the corresponding responsibilities can we find the meaning of self-existence and live authentically.