Experiences In Zebra

Zebra Experience to Change Summative Essay As said by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” This theme is presented many times throughout the story, “Zebra,” by Chaim Potok. The main character Adam, better known as Zebra, goes through several experiences that lead to his outlook on life changing. Overall his experiences render him to become a better person. One of the main experiences that changed Zebra was meeting John Wilson. Here’s how and why the experiences that Zebra went through changed him, and how he lived his life. One experience that impacted Zebra greatly was him being hit by the car. Being hit by the car lead to all of the following key events …show more content…
First of all, John taught Zebra to be open minded and eventually take up his summer art class even though Zebra declined at first. “Early the following afternoon, on the last day of school, Zebra went to Mrs. English’s office and signed up for John Wilson’s summer art class”(Potok 56). Joining the art class opened up a whole new world for Zebra that made him realize he could be happy doing the things that he wanted to do instead of moping around stuck on the subject of the car accident. Art showed him that his whole life didn’t need to revolve around one negative event and its outcome. Before Zebra met John he had a very narrow outlook that being, he loved running and he couldn’t run. When John expanded Zebra’s horizon, he became a better person and overall a more positive person. The change Zebra experienced since meeting John was becoming more positive and the ability to try new things. He not only carried this change throughout the art class, but he also kept it long past the art class ended and John Wilson had left. Some evidence of this presented in the text of the book, “Zebra” is, “Zebra went off to camp...in the arts and crafts program he made some good drawings and even got to learn a little bit about watercolors”(Potok 59). Overall Zebra’s experience with John Wilson impacted him in the long run …show more content…
John only had one arm which was a mystery to Zebra. Zebra learned that John’s wound was a product of the Vietnam War.‘“Mrs. English is it okay to ask how did Mr. Wilson—um—get hurt?’”...’”Mr, Wilson was wounded in the war in Vietnam’”(Potok 55). After acquiring this information he became very curious about the topic and set out to lean more about it. Because of this he had his geography teacher explain it briefly to him. Zebra was still very curious which was one change that the experience left him with. This started to impact the art that he made. He started making helicopters, as John served as a helicopter pilot, (“‘He told me he was a helicopter pilot’”Mrs. English said”)(Potok 56), and other symbols representing the war. After John realized this he took Zebra’s art to the Vietnam Memorial Wall to honor his friend that died in the service. This changed Zebra when he heard this because he saw how bad war could be and how deep it went. With his new obtained curiosity, Zebra took time to learn about the subject. The Vietnam War helped Zebra notice that the world was bigger outside of him and that people lead very different lives. He became less narrow sighted and started to look inside others and see how they felt with what they had gone through. This means that the change Zebra went through because of this experience was that he became more