We all have difficulties during the adolescence. So, I see easily people who are in trouble. There are two characters, which tell adolescent life. Holden, a protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye, and Paul, a main character of Six Degrees of Separation, represent our adolescence very well. They do not have any direction to live and they are immature. Also they are ambivalent. They both have two minds, which are chaos and control. These two characters show our adolescent life very well.
Holden and Paul both have no direction. They do not care their future; they just see and think immediate problems, in other words, they never think their future. Paul lies to others to evade or escape instant problem. He lies to get some money and temporary shelters. So, he makes problems even bigger because he lies. And Holden has some money, he is not poor as Paul, but he spends money without thinking his future like Paul. Finally he lost all his money and gets some from his younger sister. Most of people in this age are very hard to think their future, so parents and teachers help us. But Holden and Paul do not have any of them. Holden has his parents, but they are helpless and never appeared in the story. Therefore Holden and Paul could not think their future.
Holden and Paul are immature. They lie to others and they have no direction. However, according to Holden's English teacher, Mr. Antolini, he says "The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one."(188) Holden and Paul both have difficult problems and they are in trouble. Paul chooses to die and he kills himself, but Holden also thinks to die, but he chooses to live, even though it's very hard. He goes to mental hospital and starts his new school. Paul is very immature, he never says truth, and he lies to Quiza at very important time.