by Joan Liu

Created on: May 26, 2008   Last Updated: April 01, 2012

"If I had one day when I didn't have to be all confused and I didn't have to feel that I was ashamed of everything. If I felt that I belonged someplace, you know?" The musings of Jim Stark, a main character in the film Rebel without a Cause closely mirror the thoughts of Holden Caulfield of J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Both works depict disaffected teenagers who are unsatisfied with their lives and feel alienated by the adults around them. Holden Caulfield, the main character of Catcher in the Rye can be compared and contrasted with the three characters of Rebel without a Cause, Plato, Judy, and Jim. They represent three teenage stereotypes that Holden fits into - Plato as the perpetual outcast who seeks companionship, Judy as the phony popular one who doesn't believe in her actions, and Jim as the misunderstood teenager with a strong moral conviction.

In Rebel without a Cause, John Crawford, known to his friends as Plato, is characterized as the social outcast. At the beginning of the film, he had no friends until meeting Jim Stark. After finally finding companionship, Plato clings on to it desperately. In a way, Holden is similar. He never really connects with any of the other characters in the novel, keeping primarily to himself. At his school, Holden dislikes the other boys because he believes they are fake and hypocritical. Even when Holden goes out on a date with Sally Hayes, he does not really communicate well with her. He holds himself back with his negativity, calling Sally "stupid" and not really caring when he leaves her. In the movie, after Plato makes friends for the first time, he is really dependent on the relationship, clinging to it desperately and constantly paranoid of abandonment. This can be seen in Holden also, who feels abandoned after the brother whom he was really close to, Allie, dies of leukemia. It can be said that Holden is afraid of becoming close to anyone because he doesn't want to be left again. Holden, like Plato, also craves companionship even though he refuses to acknowledge it. He calls for a prostitute multiple times in the book, but when he finally hires one, he merely wants to talk with her. In the case of Plato, he craves companionship but is too shy and afraid to search for it, but in the case of Holden, he is easily able to talk to people, but cannot maintain a healthy relationship.

Judy is the popular girl in the book, who acts one way but thinks in another. In the course of the movie, she is sometimes does

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