Disillusionment in The Catcher in the Rye, The Things They Carried, and The Grea Essay

I never noticed this before but a common theme for books in disillusionment. Disillusionment is when you are freed from your beliefs or illusions that you have created and ejected into the truth. In the books The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, and The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien each of the characters is disillusioned in a unique way and they all cope with it in very different ways.

In The Great Gatsby, the main character Jay Gatsby was harshly disillusioned by the ideal of the woman he loved. Daisy chose to stay with Tom because Gatsby was unpredictable and new, where if she stayed with Tom she would be comfortable and used to it. Gatsby was also disillusioned by being wealthy; being wealthy was supposed to bring happiness, but it brought him pain. In the end he decided to give up on everything and stop feeling anything, and the end result was death. I feel that Gatsbys way of coping with his disillusionment could have been effective in a good way for his situation, but unfortunately it wasnt.

Holden Caulfeild from The Catcher in the Rye tried many ways to deal with the reality that no one can stay innocent. He saw that the outside world, away from school and family, could become a remedy for sadness and anger. Holden turned to drinking and smoking to help the truth become less threatening. When Holden became aware that children could no longer stay innocent forever and that his brother had died he couldnt accept it so he began talking to his deceased brother Allie. The way that Holden Caulfeild dealt with disillusionment was to self-medicate and pretend that nothing was happening. I dont believe that this is a very good way to deal with it because it is not good to be in denial; you have to accept what happened and find a healthy way to deal with it.

The first experience of disillusionment for Tim OBrien in The Things They Carried came at the young age of nine. When youre nine you believe that everyone lives until they are 100, but Tim had a friend named Linda who died when they were nine. Tim had a special way of remembering Linda; he dreamed about her and talked to her and he wrote stories about her. When Tim went to the war in Vietnam there were many deaths, and the proper way to deal with death is to have a funeral or have a moment of silence, but the other men did not have that respect. Tim OBrien was once again disillusioned, but this time of always having respect for the deceased. As he did when he was younger, Tim wrote stories about his friends who had passed to keep them alive in his mind. I believe that this would be the best was to cope with death.

I believe the ways that Gatsby and Holden dealt with their disillusionments were not healthy, productive ways, but I do believe that Tim OBrien had the right idea when he wrote stories. There are many different ways to deal with ideas that may not be true or that sometimes dont happen, you just have to choose the best one for you.