This essay will determine the differences between two popular books, The catcher in the rye: by J.D Salanger and Great expectations: by Charles Dickens. Great expectations was first published in serial form in 1861 and is written in standard English with many colloquial and archaic words. As with catcher in the rye, it was first published in 1951 and is written in American English and also has many colloquial words and is also written as if the main character is speaking (first person narrative) directly to you.
The main characters Holden (Catcher in the rye) and Philip Pirrip, referred to as pip because
" My fathers name being Pirrip and my Christian name being Philip my infant tongue could make no more of both names than pip, so I called myself pip and came to be called pip". "Christian" is an example of an archaic word as it is not in common use but it is Standard English.
Charles Dickens, a former resident of Lant Street.
Holden
The Catcher in the RyePip is 7-8 years of age while Holden is 15-16.
G.E is set a long time ago while in CATR could be set in the modern day. In G.E the sentences are long but the paragraphs are relatively small, were as in CATR the sentence are more varied with many short sentences
"He's in Hollywood."
"He just got a jaguar."
"He didn't used to."
Also the opening paragraph is very long, 28 lines long were as in G.E it is very short, 4 lines in fact.
In CATR a lot of colloquial language is used such as "lousy", "crap", "goddam", "stuff". In G.E there are not many colloquial words used but there are a lot of archaic words such as "lozenges", "exceedingly"
In CATR there are a lot of American fillers such as
"They're nice AND ALL"
"Goddam autobiography OR...