Daniel Issacson, the narrator of Doctorow's The Book of Daniel, is perhaps not as beloved and well-known as Holden Caulfield, the voice behind Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. It may be that we can empathize more easily with a misguided teenager than with a moody, radical adult. However, Daniel and Holden have a lot in common. Both are faced with a past in which a senseless death shapes their vision of the present; they become the walking wounded, it is them against the world. Holden and Daniel stumble across their own worlds pursuing a mission they can't seem to complete. It is this failure that torments them both. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Holden and Daniel both faced death at an early age. For Holden, it was the death of his younger brother, Allie. Allie's death isn't mentioned until about forty pages into the book, but once we learn about it, we gain a greater understanding of who Holden is and why he fights. Allie died of leukemia, a death beyond her control, or anyone else's. Allie was not guilty of his death. He didn't deserve it and Holden couldn't protect him. He died as an innocent child, and from this was born Holden's mission: to become the catcher in the rye. He has to protect the children's innocence, as he couldn't protect Allie. He has to make sense of Allie's death. Likewise, Daniel struggles to make sense of his parents' deaths. Their deaths, of course, are more controversial than Allie's: some argue that it was not senseless at all, but necessary. However, for Daniel as a child, his parents seemed to have been taken away for no reason. This, in turn, shapes his worldview, just as it shapes Holden's worldview. Daniel knows he is marked by what his parents died for. She laments, “I live in a constant and degrading relationship with the society that destroyed my mother and father” (p.72). Daniel's world is shaped by trying to understand this society and the role he will have to play in it. Because of the losses that each has suffered, therefore, Holden and Daniel are both driven on a sort of mission, the purpose of life. Holden sees Allie's death as a fall from innocence, a premature departure from the sanctuary of childhood. In an effort to preserve childhood and innocence, Holden imagines himself as the metaphorical "catcher in the rye." He explains to his younger sister, Phoebe: You know what I'd like to be?... I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big rye field and all... and there's no one around - no one big, I mean, except me... What I have to do is catch everyone if they start falling off the cliff... That's all I would do all day. I would simply be the catcher in the rye (p.173). Holden tries to protect these children because he couldn't protect Allie. It's the only way he can come to terms with his senseless death. The death of Daniel's parents also gives him the sense of a mission, but this mission is entrusted to him, more than in Holden's case. Daniel becomes the reluctant heir to his family's hardships. His grandmother explains it to him: "Or perhaps it is that I have recognized in you the strength and innocence that will free us all from defeat. This will exonerate our having lived and justify our suffering... Remember, however, this placing of the burden on children is a family tradition" (p.70). Daniel faces more than a personal mission; it is his family's mission, a mission they could not completewhich Daniel struggles with: he's trying to function in a society that destroyed his parents. He wants to act, to rage against this society, but he can't. Therefore, we are presented with another common point that binds Holden and Daniel: they both have a mission that they cannot complete. Both want to take action, but are misguided and don't seem to know where to direct their anger. They are aware of their missions. Holden must preserve youth; Daniel must avenge his parents' death. They know their purpose, but can't find it in themselves to act. Holden's inaction is evident in the following passage: But as I was sitting, I saw something that drove me crazy. Someone had written "Fuck you" on the wall. I thought about how Phoebe and all the other kids would see it, and how they would wonder what the hell it meant... I kept wanting to kill whoever wrote it... I kept imagining myself catching him, and how I would break his head... But I also knew that I wouldn't have the courage to do it... This made me even more depressed (p.201). Not only is Holden incapable of doing anything, he is painfully aware of it, which only intensifies his internal struggle. He wants to fix these mistakes, but he can't seem to do so. Daniel's internal struggle also stems from his inability to act. His family's burden was passed down to him; the responsibility is in his hands. The weight of what his parents stood for would not be surprising, in fact, if Daniel were to act, he had to be a revolutionary. He is aware of it and despises it, and perhaps for this reason alone he does nothing. This is best illustrated in Daniel's fight with his sister Susan over the issue of creating a foundation for the revolution in their parents' name. Susan is in favor of completing a mission in her parents' name; Daniel, on the other hand, is reluctant. Perhaps we can better understand Daniel by examining his feelings during his march on the Pentagon: I am deeply convinced that everyone has the greatest right to be here... It seems to me that practically everyone here... took ownership of the event. in a way that is beyond my capabilities. I feel like I snuck in, didn't pay, or just didn't know something everyone else knows: that maybe it can still be done (p.254). It could be that Daniel simply knows something all these young people don't: that revolution is useless. After all, this is the lesson he learned from his parents. Their deaths tired him, in a way. They fought for a cause, and for what? In the end they still lost. Perhaps, then, this is why Daniel cannot act, because he simply does not see the point. This feeling of helplessness, on the part of both Daniel and Holden, seems to convince them that the world is conspiring against them. They absolutely cannot function in a society that, to them, sometimes seems scary, absurd and frivolous. In this sense, then, they are able to act: their action is simply out of place. Holden rebels against authority - he fails in school, he disobeys his parents - because authority represents adulthood, which is the opposite of childhood and innocence. He makes war on authority because this, in a certain sense, brings him closer to his mission. Daniel goes through life feeling marked by who his parents were. Society has brought them down, so it must try to take him down too. “And then I felt like I was marked,” Daniel explains. “Because they seemed to have much more power than we did” (p.36). He wants to challenge the social structures that killed his parents. Daniel is helpless, though, and does what he can. He abuses his wife. He is irresponsible, moody and short-tempered. It's him against the world, just like.204).