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Shared Humanity In The Catcher In The Rye

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Colin Wright once said, “Our varied beliefs and backgrounds are icing. Our shared humanity is cake.” What Wright means by “varied beliefs and backgrounds”, is that every person is the same, the icing just talks of the beliefs and backgrounds of a person, their ethnicity, race, and how they were raised, it just depends. The icing can be different, for people, it’s by the variation of the person, or the layers of who they are and their personality. Wright mentions shared humanity, and what he means by this, is the traits that every person, no matter their variation, share. Whether the person is Christian or Atheist, both have the shared humanity traits inside. However, the origins of what makes humans human remain the same. These traits …show more content…

This novel shows the traits choice and morality, a choice seen in this book is Phoebe being angry at Holden for getting kicked out of school and for not letting her come with him to the “West” during their conversation and walk in the park, when they come across a carousel, “‘Do you want to go for a ride on it?’ I said. I knew she probably did. When she was a tiny little kid, and Allie and D.B. and I used to go to the park with her, she was mad about the carrousel. You couldn’t get her off the thing.” (Salinger 210). The choice Holden made, was to think about his decisions and how he handled things lately. All the thoughts he had, all the things he wanted to do, and all the things he did. He watches Phoebe on the carrousel, and contemplates his choices, and with that, his choice to go west slowly dissipated. He loved his family, and didn’t want to leave them. He chose to stay, maybe from fear of losing Phoebe, and he looks at himself instead of running. The choice to run away impacts holden very hard, but hurts Phoebe even worse. She doesn’t want Holden to leave, and when she couldn’t get him to stay at first, she decides she wants to go with him. He wouldn’t let her, and she trails after him for a while until they come across the carrousel. They talk, and this spurs Holden to stop thinking only for himself. It would frustrate most people with Holden saying he was going to run away west, thinking that it was juvenile or dumb, possibly they would connect to this from a personal experience of running away. Holden would not need this choice, he just wants it. He could have done many things, like talking to

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