Trying New Things: Experiences In Catcher In The Rye By J. D. Salinger

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Trying New Things
Experiences. Everyday people do countless activities that affect their life. However there are some people, who for one reason or another, are unable to experience these things. In the realistic fiction book, Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, Holden sometimes wants more chances for experiencing new things. Holden is a teenage boy who gets kicked out of private school. He leaves the school but does not tell his parents and ends up wandering around New York for a few days. He does activities that an average teenager would do during this time period, encounters many people, and realizes some things about himself. Throughout the book, Holden slowly grows up through many ways. If kids are able to mature into a responsible adult, they cannot be held down by one activity and need to experience multiple things, they need to jump out of their comfort zone and encounter new things, and should not be confined to social norms or how someone else views them.
Kids need to experience things by trying more than one thing and not being tied down by that one thing. Holden decides to go to Mr. Antolini’s house because he has not told his parents he has gotten kicked out of school yet. He is talking about how he did not like Oral Expression because they were not allowed to digress. He says that he likes it when people digresses but Mr. Antolini asks why a person does not just start talking about what they digressed to instead of digressing. Holden responds: “But what I mean is, lots of time you don’t know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn’t interest you most. I mean you can’t help it sometimes” (Salinger 184). This quote is a metaphor for not just when people are talking, b...

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... and jump out of their comfort zone. People should find their own direction and not listen when someone else tells them what to do and accomplish in life. This relates to society today as sometimes people do not experience enough things. They find one thing they like and stick with it even if they do not necessarily like it. Kids sometimes feel pressured to do a sport or instrument even if they do not like the activity. Adults should let kids find their purpose and hobbies in life with the adults only slightly helping lead the child in a certain direction. The theme is powerful due to the fact that everyone can learn a lesson from it and try new things. There is always a new thing to do, even if one thinks they have done it all. People should never stop trying new things and try as many things as possible, while not letting social norms define who they are.

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