Grown up? Not yet...

    After a thorough analysis of potential questions that will guide me through not only the novels selected for this class, but through future novels, and possibly life in general, I chose a simple question that arises many contemplating thoughts. What does it mean to "grow up"? Seems simple enough right? Well, I find that this question is one that will never be completely answered. I regard this question as one that could not, and will not be answered until our final stages of life, as we near closer and closer to the end, we are finally capable to examine our lives with wise eyes that can understand what it means to grow up, and when we finally did, if we did at all. However, even as some of us know this, whether we acknowledge it or not, we all still strive to find the answer. Society has placed answers in front of us, but as most of us know by now, society is stiff and restricting in almost every category. And we, in turn, have taken these said answers, and personalized it only slightly. Society says you are an adult at 18, others may find being an adult comes when you have complete freedom, say at 21, or when you get to college, when you get a job, when you get married, when you stop partying. I find all of this to be very general. Growing up is specialized for every individual, there is no one specific answer that can apply to society as a whole. My whole life, I have awaited the moment that I hit "grown up", yet every time I hit another milestone that I previously labeled as growing up, I have still felt like a child, naive and oblivious to what's going on in the world. Birthdays pass, my age accumulates, my freedom increases, my life shapes into something new and different, and yet, nothing feels all that different. And now, though I have matured, I know, though I try to fight it, that I will not understand and know the point in which I have grown up until I am able to look back on my life knowing it is final. I will not know until I am a viewing my life almost from a birds eye view, not bias, not unsure, but appeased by the peace of mind that comes with experience and wisdom. I find that this question can be applied to virtually all literature, because with the unfolding of events and situations, characters (connecting them to ourselves), mature and grow up. It is these events and situations, and how these characters handle them, that result in when and how they grow up. Pick any novel, and you will see that the characters either endure a situation and solve it, and they evolve to a different being by the end, or they don't, and that shapes them into the person they are and will be, and illustrates their maturity, and how they are so distant from growing up. And after thinking about it, this "big question" that is used to help us observe and analyze our lives and others, can and most likely will, contribute to our journey to maturity and growing up.