How is a sense of pathos achieved in both 'The Go-Between' and 'The Catcher in the Rye'?

In both novels, the reader is poignantly drawn to sense pathos throughout the journey of each protagonist. Hartley carries this out immediately, by way of the present-day Leo finding his diary inside a ‘battered’ box, like his childish ambitions which were lost and broken years ago, and further accentuated in distance by the famously quoted; ‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.’ Although both introductions establish their protagonist’s recollection, Holden provokes empathy dissimilarly to Leo. It seems Holden is more sure of his past – opposed to Leo’s memories which, like the ‘ambiguous objects’, were ‘not once apparent’ – and openly admits his account to be of ‘this madman stuff’, which outlines his honesty that consequently allows the reader to sympathise with his ‘lousy childhood’. We catch Leo feeling ashamed of his past by proclaiming, such things that once were highly obsessed over, to be nothing but ‘zodiacal fantasies’. This patronises his younger self and negates the ‘mystical appeal’ of witnessing the turn of the century, into the ‘Golden Age’; to the ancient Greek and Roman poets, this was a period of lost perfection that held potential for its return, which perhaps Hartley uses to reflect Leo’s awareness of his coming of age. Yet because of his ‘chant’, irony is shown within his preparation for the onset of maturity in a dreamy, unrealistic way.

The themes in ‘Go-Between’ that pursue Leo’s onset to change, such as the ‘expedition to Norwich’ which gave him a ‘sense of well-being…ever seeking higher levels’, could be argued different to Holden’s outlook on the evolution of an individual. Salinger uses a large, continuous paragraph for Holden’s narration of the museum, which expresses Holden’s happiness as he envisages the scene, hence connecting the reader to his nostalgia. He states that ‘the only thing that would be different would be you’ whilst everything else stayed ‘where it was’, which the reader would expect leads him to a sense of realisation. But it’s as if he enjoys the mystery of being unable to explain how someone is ‘different’; he has the capability of facing up to meaning, but that would result in him crossing into the adult world, which he may subconsciously avoid – unlike Leo who constantly strives for understanding, that at times, his naivety prevents from revealing. Holden’s subjective view of the world’s consistent rhythm could relate to the era of the author; from the Cold War, the fear of communism grew within America, as well as the practice of McCarthyism, where people’s real or supposed beliefs were exaggerated, then subjected to aggressive investigations. Salinger may use Holden’s dream of being the ‘catcher’ to represent America holding back its natural self-discovery and political evolution.

We can relate this dream of masking American society from the hidden horrors of reality, to Hartley’s use of settings which exhibits an idyllic, Eden-like atmosphere that Leo easily perceives as aristocracy, as the reader can pity his susceptibility to this façade when underneath is the cruel workings of a social system. He even goes as far as comparing these characters to ‘gods’, who he once felt ‘utterly out of place’ with, until Trimingham gives him ‘security’ and unintentionally engages his astrological obsessions be referring to him as ‘Mercury’. Hartley creates a sense of pathos in Leo’s first moment of self-recognition; instead of discovering his identity, he immediately – allowed by the ‘glass’ – perceives a distorted view of his individualism through someone else’s eyes, consequently feeling ‘inelegant’ in comparison to the demeanour of those at Brandham Hall. This falls back onto the ‘Golden Age’, Leo sees such lifestyles as perfection, which shows Hartley understands the reality of this façade by sarcastically presenting it to highlight the social divisions within the era. As Leo focusses on a false connection between status and morality – for example Marian’s beauty that disguises her ‘deceptive heart’1 – Holden on the other hand disagrees with ‘phonies’ who, for example, ‘talk about how many miles their goddam cars get to the gallon’, therefore tend to aspire within a material perspective. It could be said that Holden’s ‘red hunting cap’ is a symbolism of his individuality. For example, between a conflict with Stradlater, he undergoes a cathartic experience which gives the reader an insight to his perspective of ‘morons’; “You never what to discuss anything. That’s the way how you can always tell a moron.”, then uses the ‘cap’ as a mark of revelation. Holden comes eye to eye with his existence differently to Leo, by ways of seeing a person for their ideas and opinions instead of class or image.

Due to the characters within Hartley’s novel being more of a complex presentation than Salinger’s, we are affected easily by their misfortune. Marian and Ted’s relationship – to Hartley’s surprise – lead the public to empathise with what could be seen as innocent love, or passionate longing, whereas the strict workings of social division at the time, which further provokes empathy from modern readers, is able to manipulate these characters into viewing such affection as ‘forbidden’. Although Salinger may not go into as much depth as Hartley regarding his characters, we can still appreciate that he means to portray them in certain ways i.e. the three girls Holden meets in a bar can be seen pathetically and dismal, as they pointlessly ‘kept looking for movie stars’ whilst ‘putting away’ large amounts of alcohol.

The pair of novels essentially relate to the struggles of growing up and discovering the world. The ‘fall’ to which Mr Antolini addresses Holden with, sums up whether a person is capable of surviving the “horrible kind” of reality one can be revealed to during adolescence, aiding to a predominant sense of passion to try ones best in the journey of life, regardless of the possibilities of failure, which consequently one must overcome.

1 ‘He then had Hermes give the mortal a deceptive heart and a lying tongue.’ - extract fromhttp://prometheas.org/mythology.html
Marian can be compared to Pandora from ‘The Creation of Man by Prometheus’.