White Noise’s Heinrich vs. The Grapes of Wrath’s Al

“There’s a place in the world for the angry young man
With his working class ties and his radical plans
He refuses to bend, he refuses to crawl
He’s always at home with his back to the wall
And he’s proud of his scars and the battles he’s lost
And he struggles and bleeds as he hangs on the cross
And he likes to be known as the angry young man“

-Billy Joel Angry Young Man

I think these particular words apply well to the young male characters Heinrich from White Noise and Al from The Grapes of Wrath. This blog post will be a short comparison of the two characters.

Both boys seem to have a slight driving anger which pushes them to prove themselves through any sort of means. And both are around the same age, Heinrich being 14 and Al being 16. This is where I believe the similarities end.

Al is genuinely skilled with cars and usually kind, although sometimes he does get a bit ornery. Heinrich on the other hand is a nihilistic questioner who hangs out with a 19-year-old academic failure who is training to break the world record for amount of days spent in a cage with live venomous snakes. Heinrich frequently clashes with his father in meaningless conversation while living in pretty comfortable circumstances, while Al almost never questions his father even in the midst of growing up poor in the Great Depression. Al is quite popular with the ladies, Heinrich is not, or at least has not been shown to be.

I think each inhabit their respective novels for different reasons. Heinrich is more of a stereotype for the 80s nihilistic youth, while Al Joad is meant to just be a contributing member of a poor family. This is probably why Al is more likable and virtuous than Heinrich.