The Characters of Hamlet and Holden Essay -- compare, contrast, compari

To some, this argument may seem the most blatant spirt of mistruth, horrendous, even, in its lack of taste, a kind of literary sacrilege, in fact. certainly we have reached the end, one might say, when one can considerer comparing the eonian Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, with the adolescent protagonist of Salingers The Catcher in the Rye. Salingers chock has been compared to many literary figures, from Huckleberry Finn to David Copperfield. So many different attitudes have been interpreted toward him. Lets stop talking about him and write something else. Isnt the subject getting boring? Perhaps so, but Holden will non go away. He continues to pester the mind, and while reading A.C. Bradleys outline of Hamlets character, it was hard to resist the idea that much of what Bradley was truism about Hamlet applied to Holden as well. Perhaps the comparison is non as absurd as it first appears. Of course, there is no resemblance between the events of the play and those of the no vel. The fascinating thing while reading Bradley was how abruptly his analysis of Hamlets character applied to Holdens, how deeply, in fact, he was going into Holdens character as well, revealing, among other things, its virileially sad nature. After demolishing the theories of other critics, Bradley concluded that the essence of Hamlets character is contained in a three-fold analysis of it. First, that rather than being affliction by temperament, in the usual sense of gravidly sad, he is a person of unusual nervous instability, one liable to extreme and profound alterations of mood, a potential manic-depressive type. Romantic, we might say. Second, this Hamlet is also a person of exquisite moral sensibility, hypersensitive to goodness, a m... ...dy view holden as symbolizing the plight of the idealist in the modern world. Most importantly, however, it suggests why Holden Caulfied will not go away, he continues to remain so potent an influence on the now aging younger g eneration that he first spoke to, and why he continues to brand himself anew on the young. In fact, in this age of atrophy, in this thought-tormented, thought-tormenting time in which we live, peradventure it is not going too far to say that, for many of us, at least, our Hamlet is Holden. Works CitedBradley, A.C. Hamlet. Shakespearean Tragedy. New York St. Martins Press, 1981. 89-174. Sanders, Wlibur, and Howard Jacobson. Hamlets Sanity. Shakespeares Magnanimity Four Tragic Heroes, Their Friends and Families. New York Oxford University Press, 1978. 22-56. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. New York upper-case letter Square Press, 1992.