The Catcher In The Rye: A Literary Analysis

Kendrick Lamar and J.D. Salinger are very famous for inspiring people with their different creations. Although they communicate using different forms of media, their work has touched the lives of many different people. In this essay, I will be comparing the similarities of Holden Caulfield’s journey in J.D. Salinger’s novel, “The Catcher in the Rye”, to Kendrick Lamar’s personal pilgrimage leading up to the creation of his latest album, “To Pimp a Butterfly”. Specifically, I will be talking about how the titles of their works are both metaphors for the shedding of ignorance and innocence in their respective journeys to adulthood, how their coming of age journeys are shown using different media and how the novel and album have similar conclusions.

Holden Caulfield interprets the title, “The Catcher in the Rye,” in a very unique way. In the novel, he remembers the song “Comin’ Thro’ the Rye.” by Robert Burns (Salinger 115). When he hears the song from a boy walking down the street, he misinterprets one of lines; “If a body meet a body, coming through the rye” becomes “If a body

Kendrick also has these internal battles about what is wrong and right. Kendrick explains why he calls the album, “To Pimp a Butterfly”, in his last song, Mortal Man. He describes it as the caterpillar never getting recognized for what it is, only what it is going to become; the butterfly. “The caterpillar is a prisoner to the streets that conceived it. Its only job is to eat or consume everything around it… While consuming its environment the caterpillar begins to notice ways to survive. One thing it noticed is how much the world shuns him, but praises the butterfly” (K Lamar, ending of Mortal Man). In bildungsromans, characters go on a journey to find who they are. At the end, when they think they have grasped whatever knowledge they were looking for on this quest, they often realize that it never really