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Why Is Growing Up Bad

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Growing up is bad, because people are kinder and more tolerant towards children, and as people grow up, they have to worry more about doing the right thing. Innocence is bliss, and younger people don’t realize all of the negative things around them and the people trying to shelter them from bad things. However, as people grow up, they will notice more negative things and become more skeptical about the way the world works. In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger shows that growing up is a bad thing because younger people don’t realize things that they start to notice as they grow older that will make them more skeptical about the world.
Growing up is a bad thing because people do not criticize children as much, and children are more innocent …show more content…

When Holden is at the American Museum of Natural History, he says, “I kept thinking about old Phoebe going to the museum on Saturdays the way I used to. I thought of how she’d see the same stuff I used to see, and how she’d be different every time she saw it. It didn’t exactly depress me, but it didn’t make me feel gay as hell either. Certain things they should stay the way they are” (136). Holden realizes that the museum won’t change, but people will change each time they return. He’s upset because he realizes that he will never see anything from the same perspective more than once. Despite the fact that he’s going to a place that has always made him happy, he has changed and lost some innocence and will never feel the same blissful happiness again. As Holden looking for the lagoon in Central Park, a place he has been to many times before, he says, “I still couldn’t find it. I must’ve been drunker than I thought. I kept walking and walking, and it kept getting spookier and spookier” (170). Holden is frustrated because he has grown up in New York City and likes to think that he can always find his way around, except he’s older than he was when he lived in New York, and he’s drunk. When he finds the lagoon, he sits down and worries about the cold temperature and getting pneumonia and dying, fears that wouldn’t have crossed his mind when he was

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