Summary Of Hannah Arendt's Teddy

In “Teddy”, J.D. Salinger articulates many ideas similar to those of Hannah Arendt, including those of solitude and meditation, essence versus existence, and the notion of jumping into a movement. Teddy, a young boy full of Vedantic and existential ideas thoroughly discusses important life questions with his foil, Nicholson. Teddy addresses the idea of existence vs. essence, stating that individuals today are influenced by the ideas of others starting as early as the day of their birth. Instead, Teddy believes that individuals should experience every fragment of sensory input without any expectation or bias from other humans. This idea that existence is solely birth and that essence is found through the individual is discussed by both Arendt

Here, Teddy counters by stating that he and every human once had the ability to deliberately grow cells but now, after thousands of years, do so unconsciously. He supports his argument with Vedantic ideas of reincarnation and how his ‘soul’ had once known but has forgotten over the hundreds of thousands of generations. Similarly to Arendt, Teddy explains ideas of solitude and meditation, stating how one in isolation could actually remember how to grow cells. Arendt also believes that meditation helps guide individuals to finding their unique essence in life, while Teddy correlates meditation with looking back into one’s previous bodies for answers. This common idea of solitude is expressed when Teddy explains, “It would take quite a lot of meditation and emptying out to get the whole thing back-I mean conscious knowledge-but you could do it if you wanted to. If you opened up wide enough.” The phrase “open up wide enough” is similar to Arendt’s ideas that the individual must look within themselves and question their own beliefs and morals to find answers. “Wide enough” simply states the extent to which one must search: a seemingly great extent at that. “Open up” is Teddy’s rhetorical phrasing for one searching within themselves to create solutions. Arendt expresses similar beliefs of wanting individuals to look deep within themselves and question their own morals and ideas to eventually achieve a new, refined outlook on