Troubles or Enlightenment

It’s interesting that, in both the first and last story of Salinger’s Nine Stories, the theme of death seems to play a key role. In the first story, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, Seymour decides to take his life at the end. There are many theories as to why Seymour took his own life, in fact, it’s considered one of the most highly-debated short story questions over the years since the book has been published. There are dozens of theories, and we really can’t be sure which one of them is “right”, since Salinger made it so ambiguous. It could be that he wrote the story with some specific reason in mind, or that he intentionally left it open to interpretation. One theory has to do with the war. Seymour’s mental troubles are the result of the war, suffering with what today we would call post-traumatic stress disorder. (This term wasn’t around when Salinger was writing). We can infer that Seymour has witnessed some awful things during his military service and that he’s having a hard time readjusting to being home. He is no longer comfortable interacting with most adults and so he retreats into his own world. Sybil offers him a glimpse of the world as he would like it to be--innocent, curious, and pure--but his interaction with the woman in the elevator reminds him that the adult world is actually nothing like this. Unable to cope with reality, and unable to function normally, Seymour turns to suicide. But, like I said, this is just a theory.

Another theory, one that is far less satisfying, is that Seymour is a pedophile. He’s attracted to Sybil and even goes so far to kiss her foot. He is then filled with shame at his action and so kills himself, preserving Sybil’s purity in the process. This theory is a possible one, and is one that a lot of people in our class jumped to when initially reading the story. Many critics believe it to be unlikely reasoning behind Seymour’s death, but it still possible.

Finally, there is one more commonly thought of theory that would help tie the whole book together. This particular theory makes more sense when studying “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “Teddy” side-by-side. As hinted in the epigraph, “We Know the sound of two hands clapping. But what is the sound of one hand clapping?”, there is a common theme of Zen Buddhism in Salinger’s work. The first and last story of Nine Stories both deal with this theme. In “Teddy”, the young child genius is somewhat of a Zen master. He discusses his relationship with enlightenment in a previous life and he casually foretells his own death.

It’s interesting to note that both “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “Teddy” end with death of the main character (or so we assume is the ending of “Teddy”). At first, the tone of these deaths may seem very different. Teddy calmly accepts his accidental death as a step on the road to enlightenment, and there is tranquility even in the jarring ending. But, is Seymour’s death also calm and accepting? Well, in “Teddy”, the title character explains that death is in many ways like waking up. So, it’s no coincidence that Muriel is sleeping in the bed nearby when Seymour puts the gun to his head. He’s waking up; she’s still asleep. If one considers the idea of the bananafish, we could see that the gluttonous creature may represent the material obsessions of people. Seymour doesn’t want to be like the bananafish, pigging out on physical desires, so he kills himself. He ends his physical existence, but not, many argue, his spiritual one.

All in all, these are all just theories. I believe that Salinger intentionally left his endings ambiguous so, as readers, we can come up with our own reasons why. This method definitely allows the readers to have somewhat of a say in the storyline, seemingly giving it almost a “Choose Your Own Adventure” vibe. Assumably, Salinger may have had his own reasons behind his endings, but he leaves it up to the reader to figure it out or come up with their own.

Is That Even True?!?

Throughout the latter years of my high school career, the questions of “Is the narrator telling the truth?” seems to always come about in class discussions. Now, before I was introduced to this kind of questioning, I always just assumed that the narrator of a story was always being truthful, or else there would be no reason to tell us the story in the first place. But, nearing my senior year of high school, it seems like the reliability of a narrator is always something that must be questioned in any and every book one reads. It almost seems counterintuitive to ask, after finishing a story, whether or not the narrator was actually telling the truth. Why would you read a story that you know isn’t true? But, when it came time for “De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period”, the reliability of the narrator, Jean De Daumier-Smith, proved to be a topic worth discussing. Now, right off the bat, we can see the Jean is an interesting character to say the least. Even in his opening paragraph we can see that there is something just off about him. His constant interjections within his sentences distract from the subject of his thoughts, making him come off as arrogant and obnoxious. To be honest, I hated Jean’s character in the beginning. He came off as trying to act very posh, seemingly making us feel like we were subordinate to him. It isn’t until his fills out his application to work for M. Yoshito, that we begin to see a hidden side of Jean.

While applying for the art teacher job, Jean feels the need to lie about numerous aspects of his life in order to appear capable for the job. He even proclaims that he and his family was friends with Pablo Picasso for peat’s sake! Jean feels unconfident with his current character, so he fabricates aspects of his life to make him seemingly appear more appealing. Now, Jean does get the job, but this seems to have negative effects. He feels the need to play this character that he has convinced his employers to hire. While working he even tries to think of new false stories about the times he “hung out” with Picasso. Being hired only showed Jean that he needs to fabricate aspects of his life in order to be accepted. This plays along with Jean’s constant feeling of loneliness. Only recently has his mother died and so Jean is left with his stepfather, Bobby. (Of which it doesn’t help that Bobby has seemed to have moved on, since he is already eating dinner with another lady). So, Jean tries to downplay his loneliness by extremely playing up other aspects of his character. In this situation, he decides to exercise his ability to lie. Similarly, in “For Esmé--with Love and Squalor”, Esmé tries very hard to sound like an adult by having a pretentious vocabulary. She’s just trying to fit in among adults, but since she is a kid and doesn’t necessarily understand the meaning behind all the words she chooses to use, she ends up sounding a little bit on the ridiculous side. Similarly, Jean attempts to appear as this art prodigy, when in reality, he is just nineteen and naive.

With all this being said, even if Jean can be seen as a sympathetic character, do we trust him? I mean, he has proved to be a decent liar, and I wouldn’t put it past him to possibly lie in order to get us on his good side. Does it ruin the story if some of it is fabricated? I honestly can’t say. All I know is that it is a little unsettling to have to question a narrative because, especially since it’s a short story, what Jean says is all we get. We experienced something similar to this when reading The Things They Carried in which the narrator shares with us the difference between the truth-truth and the story-truth. Now, when I read stories, I tend to just assume that the words on the page are the truth. I assume that the narrator and I have this bond and that he or she feels confident in sharing the true story with me. But, throughout my english career, I have realized that this is not always the case. Unfortunately, us readers are just as untrustworthy as the rest of them. Only, we are (or at least in my case) more gullible. I feel like my emotions are being played with, but, either way, Jean tells a pretty good story, so I suppose it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not.

Just a bunch of what ifs...

When discussing Salinger’s “Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes” in class, it was evident that most people assumed that Joanie, Arthur’s wife, was having an affair with Lee. Although we are never explicitly given the name of the girl who is in bed with Lee, through little hints Salinger drops throughout the scene, we can reasonably infer that the woman was Joanie. Going with that, as Lee states, this makes the whole scene that much more complicated. As stated in class, it’s both sad and impressive that Lee gives advice to his friend on the woman he happens to be sleeping with. What’s worse is that, by the end of the scene, when Arthur calls back to tell Lee that he wife has apparently walzed through the door, just like he said she would, Lee fully realizes the damage that has been done. Whether or not Arthur knows that his wife is with Lee is unknown, but it hurts that Arthur feels the need to lie in order to save face and convince Lee that he isn’t as crazy or paranoid as he may seem.

This is why, at the end of the story, Lee acts cold towards the woman. All she has said is that she feels like a dog by being in a relationship with two men. She doesn’t show any sense of compassion and sympathy towards Arthur, who seems genuinely worried that his marriage may be over. It’s symbolic how, when the lit cigarette drops to the ground, the girl attempts to help retrieve it before it burned anything, but Lee stops her. Damage has already been done, so there’s no use trying to stop it. Although the fire of love between Arthur and Joanie may have died out, a new fire has been started; a fire consisting of envy and guilty; a fire that is currently tearing Lee apart.

Even though Lee and Arthur don’t even seem like good friends, he still feels bad for the situation that he is in. Arthur has honestly no clue what’s going on so he just gets drunk in order to clear his head, but this just causes him to become more and more paranoid and worried about the whole situation. All Lee can say is that he needs to close his eyes and it will all be over. Joanie will be back and things will go back to normal...until she sneaks out again, and again, and again. Lee realizes that this will become a vicious cycle of Joanie leaving and Arthur becoming worried. He can see that Joanie has lost interest in Arthur and that their marriage is basically over, but Arthur can’t seem to bring himself to break it off. A reasonable explanation for this is that Arthur is a very traditional man. He believes that once the vows are said, the married couple has made a promise to be bound together for life. What he didn’t see is that Joanie is seemingly not ready for marriage. I do believe that, at some point in their relationship, that Joanie loved Arthur. But she has since moved on, seemingly taking her marriage less seriously. As RJ mentioned in class, Joanie’s character slightly resembles Aunt Sylvie in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping. In Robinson’s novel, Sylvie is a nomad. She loves to hop on a train and just see where it takes her. She is a free spirit. In Salinger’s novel, Joanie is sort of a free spirit of her own. As stated by Arthur, “every night I come home, I half expect to find a bunch of bastards hiding all over the place. Elevator boys. Delivery boys. Cops--” (119). In a nutshell, Arthur states that his wife gets around, storing her apparent multiple suitors all around the house. In this way, Joanie feels as if she too is a free spirit. She doesn’t feel confined by marriage like Arthur does. She does what she pleases. Unfortunately, doing what makes her happy is consequently making her husband go batshit crazy.

Now, the majority of this blog post is based off the idea that Joanie is the girl in Lee’s room, seemingly having an affair with him. Even though this isn’t a direct conclusion that we can necessarily come to, because of how ambiguous Salinger is with the meaning behind his writing, all we can do is take the text given to us and make our own conclusions, which I believe was the goal Salinger had in mind when writing his stories.

Multiple Sides to a Story

So, I know this is backtracking, but I wanted to take some time and revisit Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”. While searching the internet for “fun facts on J.D. Salinger” on a lovely, sunny Saturday afternoon, I came across a somewhat startling fact that apparently Salinger had a predilection for young teen girls. This aspect of Salinger’s life was seen as very disturbing to others, even filmmakers who were attempting to create a movie that gave people insight into Salinger’s life. The movie touches on Salinger’s early romance with high-schooler Oona O’Neill (who would later marry Charlie Chaplin), and describes his involvement with Jean Miller, whom he met when she was 14 and he was 30. It also delves into his relationship with Claire Douglas, whom he met when she was 16 and who became his second wife and mother to his two children.

One of his most well-documented relationships was with the 18-year-old Joyce Maynard, while he was 53. She dropped out of Yale to live with him for 10 months, where she wrote her first novel about living with Salinger. After 10 months, he their relationship ended abruptly. At the film's premiere in Telluride, Maynard attended and commented that she was more agitated by the movie than she expected, saying that “Salinger’s interest in seeking out young girls in certainly an element in the film. But the disturbing consequences of this behavior, to the girls, is barely addressed, and the suggestion has been made that there was some kind of privilege or honor involved in having been selected as a muse...It is my view that J.D. Salinger damaged the lives of many young girls, on a far greater scale than is represented in Salerno’s film.” So, even with the film out and Salinger’s nature exposed, many people still feel it lucky for Maynard to have had the chance to be in a relationship with the great J.D. Salinger. Many don’t take the time to realize the hardships she went through by dropping out of Yale, just four months away from graduation, because she felt like she was in love, only to be dumped ten months later.

The movie about Salinger’s life came out in 2013 and was unfortunately a flop for most Salinger fans were unhappy with how cheesy the movie, among other displeasing aspects. But after seeing the film, some people were taken aback, and also unable to accept the disturbing parts of Salinger’s personality. In the initial early cuts of the film, many people were like “We get it”, implying that Salinger’s accomplishments outweigh his romantic nature. In today’s world, if someone were to have the same tendencies as Salinger, their career would plummet and they would be punished. But, back then, people revered Salinger and literary talents.

Now, relating this back to “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, I honestly think Salinger reflected his character in Seymour, more than we may think. Seymour is seen as an outlier among the adult community because he feels more comfortable sinking into this child-like state. Although this sort of behavior is frowned upon and causes adults to worry about Seymours nature, it’s what he feels comfortable with. Now, Seymour, as we know it, doesn’t seek relationships with the children he chooses to hang out with, he would just rather play with them than adults. But, his actions are still frowned upon because no one takes the chance to try and understand him. Similar, Salinger’s nature of dating teenage girls was also probably frowned upon. I’m not saying his preference for teenagers should be acceptable, but I’m thinking that no one took the time to understand him except for the girls he was in a relationship with. But, even with his questionable past, it’s interesting that people refuse to dwell on Salinger’s dark side and choose to revere him for his literary talents.

Potential Curveball

As we work our way through J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories, a pattern has begun to emerge where Salinger sets us up to be suspicious of characters and then leaves us to decide if that character will change our mind. In the beginning of the story “Down at the Dinghy”, Sandra and Mrs. Snell are talking about the little boy who lives in the vacation house that they work at. They claim that “it drives ya loony, the way that kid goes pussyfootin’ all around the house. Ya can’t hear him, ya know. I mean nobody can hear him, ya know” (75). According to Sandra, the little boy is always lurking around the corner or under the table. She feels like she can’t say anything for fear that he may hear and tell on her. It’s torture for her when “ya gotta weigh every work ya say and all” (75). Even as Mrs. Snell tries to talk her through it and mentions that the boy will turn out alright because he’s a good looking kid, Sandra just snarls and mentions that the boy will have a nose just like his father.

Initially, although I could see that having a nose like his father wasn’t a good thing in Sandra’s mind, I was unaware of the anti semitic implications of her statement. Once we found out that the family was Jewish, it seemed as though Sandra’s statement wasn’t so innocent afterall. By saying Lionel, the little boy, will have a nose like his father’s, she is implying that he will grow up Jewish (obviously) and therefore be a greedy jew, apparently like his father. Sandra’s anti semitism is also seen when Lionel repeats a phrase to his mother that he overheard Sandra say. According to Lionel, Sandra called the father of the house a “big--sloppy--kike” (86). The word “kike” is an ethnic slur for Jewish people and, although Lionel is unaware of the darkness behind the word, (he even believes that she is saying “kite” instead of “kike”), his mother, Booboo, does, and it worries her that her son now knows such words like that.

But, I suppose, fortunately, for Booboo, Lionel is unaware of the meaning of the word and mistakes it for the word “kite”. In this situation, Booboo is faced with a difficult problem: should she explain the true meaning behind the word, or should she leave it alone? In Salinger’s account, Booboo plays along with the “kite” interpretation, seemingly trying to save some of her son’s innocence. She keeps Lionel in an innocent faze of his life, refraining from explaining to him the true meaning behind the word and opening up to him the anti semitic world around them. In this way, by the end of the story, our minds have been twisted in knots. As stated before, Salinger leads us to believe that there is something wrong with Lionel and his family by showing us the conversation between Sandra and Mrs. Snell. In “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, Salinger did a similar thing with the conversation between Muriel and her mother over Seymour. In that story, Seymour turned out to be a little different from others, although not dangerous as we were led to expect. Interestingly enough, Seymour is seen as strange because he feels more comfortable settling into a child-like personality instead of adjusting to the adult world. In “Down at the Dinghy”, Lionel is seen as a problem child because he runs off and doesn’t listen to anyone, except his mother from time to time. The way she can get him to listen is when she adapts to his mindset. She plays the game with him because she knows that he doesn’t understand the adult world. Although, in Seymour’s case, being in this child-like state made him seem different and dangerous, whereas Lionel’s mother is seen as understanding and almost heroic. (I suppose this is a mother-son relationship so it’s a different case from Seymour’s).

Because of this, even with Salinger’s initial manipulation of our perspective, we can see that Lionel and his mother aren’t so bad and that Sandra just doesn’t understand. In fact, this actually reflects badly on Sandra’s character, allowing us to sympathize with Lionel and his mother. It’s almost as if Salinger was trying to trick us and make “Down at the Dinghy” seem similar to the first story in his collection Nine Stories. I’m not sure if this was Salinger’s plan all along, throwing us a curveball and all, but if so, it worked very well.

Laughing No More

In Hemingway’s story, “The Laughing Man”, we can see the progression of how the image of the Chief deteriorates in front of the Comanches’ eyes. Initially, the Chief is revered. He is a magnificent chauffeur, storyteller, and leader in their eyes. As the narrator states, “the Chief always found us” (57), he was a dependable man whom the Comanche boys looked up to. Since this story is told a reminiscent style, we can sense that the narrator is looking back on the positive aspects of his childhood. In his grown up state, he knows that the Chief was just “John Gedsudski, of Staten Island. He was an extremely shy, gentle young man of twenty-two or three, a law student at N.Y.U, and all together a very memorable person” (57). Having grown up, the narrator realizes that the image of the Chief in his nine-year old self was vastly different from what John Gedsudski’s true character was like. No matter, the memories were good until they seemingly abruptly ended.

In the last scene, we see a drastic change in the Chief’s character. (It seems drastic because we are only given the perspective of a nine year old boy, so we aren’t really given the full story). His deterioration seems to correlate with the story he tells to the boys about the Laughing Man. In his story, he tells of a man who feels disgraced by the formation of his face. People would be disgusted at the sight of his face and so he wears a mask to cover his apparent distasteful features. While wearing his mask, he is both unrecognizable and seemingly an entirely different person. He a strong and powerful character that proves to be very inspiring to the Chief’s audience. In a way, the Laughing Man character correlates with the Chief’s life. While he’s with the Comanches, the Chief covers his shyness with his storytelling. He is a leader to the boys and he tells stories to show them.

But at the end of the story, the Chief says that the Laughing Man dies, having his last act being taking his mask off. In the Chief’s life, we can see that he is possibly done trying to hide behind these stories and lies. In reality, the Chief is this lonely character and so he hides behind the mask of the fictional characters in his stories. But now, it’s time to live his stories instead of cowering behind his words. Although, at the time, this upsets the narrator and his fellow Comanches, having grown up, he understands the choices the Chief made. Also, with the addition of death in his story, there is a loss of innocence among the Comanches because, not only have they lost their fictional hero, the Laughing Man, but also their real life hero, the Chief. 

It’s interesting that the Chief used the platform of a fictional character to show his apparent true character. I suppose this sort of application sort of maintains a sense of innocence that appeals to the Comanches. But, by doing this, it may not get the full message across. But, judging by the narrator's nostalgic attitudes towards the memory, I’m guessing they all got the message at some point in time. Still, even though the image of the Chief has been possibly ruined, his legacy lives on through the imagination of the Comanche boys. As the narrator looks back on it, it was seemingly obvious that the Chief wasn’t as big as he imagined he was, but he still represents that leader figure in his childhood, a figure that he, and the rest of the Comanches, will never forget.

An Unlikely Pairing

In Hemingway’s “Just Before the War with the Eskimos”, we encounter two seemingly polar opposite characters who converse and leave with a better understanding of each other. We can infer that Ginnie Mannox lives in an upperclass, proper family. She plays tennis with her “friend”, Selena Graff, and takes a taxi home every day, which typically means she is well off and privileged. On the other hand, Franklin, Selena’s brother, is a totally opposite character from Ginnie. He is a slob and doesn’t care much what people think of him. Initially, Ginnie seems repulsed by him as he entered “wearing glasses and pajamas and no slippers [he] lunged into the room with his mouth open...without stopping, and with extremely poor posture, he continued across the room” (42). As Franklin enters, Ginnie has her legs crossed and coat smoothed over, intent on making a good impression. But, obviously, Franklin doesn’t have the same idea in his mind as he literally lunges into the room and shows her his bloody finger that he has apparently cut right down to the bone.

Now, although Ginnie is, at first, disgusted by how Franklin acts and dresses, throughout the conversation, she becomes increasingly intrigued with his character. I suppose one doesn’t come across a character like Franklin everyday. Unlike Ginnie, and probably the people Ginnie hangs around, Franklin isn’t concerned with the opinions of others. He isn’t worried about politeness, he does things because he’s not self conscious. Through this, he ends up opening Ginnie’s narrow view of the world. In Ginnie’s mind, life is based on impressions. If you are well off, you must appear and act well off and act accordingly. But, seeing Franklin, who lives in a pretty well off family, act as though he lives elsewhere, inspires her. I suppose it could be exhausting for Ginnie to have to constantly be conscious of how she looks and acts. She can finally relax around Franklin and learn about his background that is so vastly different from the people she usually associates herself with.

This is probably one of the reasons why Ginnie changes her mind in the end about Selena owing her money and asks if they can hang out later. Initially, Ginnie didn’t understand Selena and her family. She thought it was ridiculous that Selena couldn’t spare the money to help pay for the taxi fare from time to time. It seems as though Ginnie just grouped together Selena and her family and so it didn’t matter what sort of complications they were going through, she just wanted her money. But, after speaking and learning about Selena’s brother, Ginnie becomes enlightened. Franklin gives her a new perspective on Selena’s family. Initially, Ginnie thoughts they were all the same, but now she can see just how unique Selena and her brother are. (Assumably, the Graff parents must be pretty interesting characters as well). This is why Ginnie wants to hang out with Selena more later. She’s realized that she doesn’t know the true Selena and that there is more to her story. Ginnie finds Franklin’s character fascinating and seemingly wants to learn more about the Graff family as a whole.  

It’s interesting how just one conversation seems to change Ginnie’s perspective. Although her conversation with Eric is also impactful, I believe that hers with Franklin is much more eye opening. She can see that there are more sides to the Graff family's story and wants to learn more. This is one of the reasons why I thought that, in the ending scene, Ginnie kept Franklin’s sandwich in her coat pocket. It serves as a reminder to her conversation with Franklin and her new perspective on the Graff family. (Hopefully the sandwich doesn’t go rotten in her pocket, because that wouldn't bode well for symbolism in the Graff family’s case).

Stuck in the Past

In Salinger’s story, “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut”, it’s obvious that the ending, and practically the whole story in particular, is open to interpretation. With the seemingly cynical character, Eloise, asking her friend, Mary Jane, “I was a nice girl…wasn’t I?” (38), we are left trying to decipher what it all means. Obviously the ending scenes are very powerful and revealing of Eloise’s character. From the very beginning, we can see that Eloise can be a very ignorant and impatient character. This is especially evident in her interactions with her own daughter, Ramona. Ramona seems to be a shy little girl who isn’t afraid of a little imagination, which is typical of most children. Although her shyness does irk Eloise, it’s not the quality she despises the most. It’s Jimmy, Ramona’s imaginary “beau” who follows her wherever she goes. Now, since Ramona is a victim of verbal abuse, I can see why her mind seeks companionship and creates Jimmy to fill that empty void. And, unlike Eloise, Mary Jane seems to be supportive of Ramona’s beau, continuing to ask questions and play along. Mary Jane seems to have a knack for interacting with children, a quality that Eloise seemingly lacks.

But, I think there are deeper roots to Eloise’s dissatisfaction with Ramona’s imaginative mind. Initially in Eloise’s life, she thought that she had found her soulmate, Walt. He made her laugh and was seemingly the only one who understood her. Even now, she refuses to tell her current husband, Lew, about Walt. She even refuses to tell Lew how Walt died. She claims that he is “too damn unintelligent” (31), and won’t understand what he meant to her. But it’s honestly clear to see that Eloise still isn’t over Walt, and if she tells too many people of his death, it will become even more real. Eloise lives her life disconnected, almost seemingly waiting for Walt to waltz back through the doors so she can continue her life as if nothing ever happened. It pains her to see that she can’t love Lew the way she loved Walt, no matter how hard either of them try. Lew will never be Walt in Eloise’s mind.

This is why she finds herself constantly frustrated with her own daughter. Ramona is able to make up her own boyfriend and be happy with him. She keeps one side of the bed open for him, even if he doesn’t exist. And when that boyfriend passes, a new one is able to appear. So, when Eloise hears that Jimmy Jimereeno has been hit and killed and then been replaced by Mickey Mickeranno, she becomes very angry. Even her own daughter is able to move on when the love of her life passes away. Ramona is able to find happiness with another man and doesn’t hold on to the dead of the past. Eloise isn’t able to do this because she can’t accept and forget Walt. No matter how much Lew may try to please her, his efforts will always be in vain because he and Walt are different people.

This is why Eloise breaks down and asks Mary Jane “I was a nice girl…wasn’t I?” Because she seemingly used to be a nice, accepting girl when she was rooming with Mary Jane or in a relationship with Walt. But the times have changed and she wishes they hadn’t. Even though she was a nice girl, she can’t seem to find happiness in her life at the moment. Her happiness lies in the past with Walt. It’s almost as if Eloise lives her life alone because no one understand her anymore, or at least she doesn’t trust anyone enough to let them. Even Mary Jane, one of her good friends, can’t seem to help Eloise see the good in her life with her loving husband and creative daughter. Eloise’s life is stuck in the past and, unfortunately, may never catch up to the present.

Upon Second Glance

Before we started reading J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories, Mr. Mitchell’s specific instructions were to read the first story, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, twice. Now, I wouldn’t consider myself a consistent rule breaker, but on the night that this reading was assigned, I was feeling particularly rebellious/ lazy. So, I decided that reading the story only one time through would suffice, and if I got confused, I would read through it again. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. So, after reading the story, I felt like I had a good idea on what it was about: A rebellious daughter phoning her worried mother, telling her that everything is all right. A sketchy man lying on the beach with a robe wrapped around him, waiting for a little girl to approach. The man was obviously a predator or some sort by the way he talks and acts around the little girl. The man then proceeds to kill himself, possibly a little disgusted with the way he acts and feels around the little girl, and how he may not feel the same around his own wife. It seemed like some pretty straight forward material, dark, but straight forward. Well boy was I wrong.

Now, as mentioned before, I had only read the story once that night, (Sorry, Mr. Mitchell), believing that I really had a clear idea on what the story was about. But, once I got to school and began discussing the story’s content with some of my fellow classmates, I found that some people didn’t have the same interpretation as I did. Some people were even suggesting that this man, Seymour, wasn’t a predator and that he was just being playful with the child, Sybil. Needless to say, I came to the conclusion that the story deserved a second read before it came time for class discussion.

Now, after having read the story twice and discussed it in class, I honestly can’t make up my mind with what’s going on. So, I’ve devised two theories that put forth the mindsets that I came out with when reading the story, mostly regarding Seymour as a character. (Before I dive into this,  I just want to say that I think it’s pretty incredible that J.D. Salinger wrote a story in which two or more vastly different conclusions can be made. Quite controversially clever, Salinger). So, here’s the first one:

This theory is similar to the one that I stated earlier upon my first read, only a little more fleshed out. In this theory, I thought about the reasons behind Seymour’s suicide at the end of the chapter. (Before I go into this, I want to state that I know there is no way to pinpoint the direct reasoning behind someone taking his or her own life. That sort of action is very complicated and cannot be reasoned by anyone except for the one doing it). In class, the question was posed that if Murial and Seymour are so happy together, then why does Seymour seek a friendship with Sybil and shoot himself in the end. When first reading the story, I thought that Seymour was a pedophile of some sort (or he has some fetishism towards children), and that he knew it. He loves his wife, but not in the way that she loves him, because he can’t. He seems to feel more comfortable and able to interact with Sybil and other children her age. Knowing this, Seymour may have felt sad and lonely because he can’t be in a happy relationship with his own wife because he just doesn’t have that same attraction to her as she does to him, and he can’t seem to confide with anyone this kind of information, for fear of being judged. This is evident in the scene where he shoots himself in which he “glanced at the girl lying asleep on one of the twin beds” (18).  After this, he grabs the gun, looks at his wife one more time, and then pulls the trigger. I read those two glances as looks of remorse. Seymour felt sorry that his wife endeared so much backlash for waiting for him and he can’t live up to what she may want of him. In this theory, Seymour knows that his fetishism is wrong, and so to act on in and make life easier for those around him, he shoots himself.

OR

After taking a second look and discussing the story in class, I devised a completely different theory. Being sent to the war deeply affected Seymour. Being surrounded by violence made him want to revert back to the periods of his life where he was an innocent young child. Unable to go there physically, his mind took him there mentally. That is why Seymour acts to playfully with Sybil because he understands her and her thought processes. He prefers being in this fantasy world where bananafish are real and the trees are a mysterious place to play hide and seek in, unlike the world of fashion that Murial and her mother seem to be so obsessed with. We see this in the way Seymour interacts with children and how it is vastly different from how he interacts with adults. When riding the elevator back up to his room, Seymour yells at this adult woman for seemingly staring at his feet, even though she was possibly just staring at the ground instead. Needless to say, that didn’t matter in Seymour’s eyes, for he still yelled at her, to which she promptly asked to get off the lift. In the end, Seymour may have ended his life because he realized that he just doesn’t fit in the world around him. He has the mind of a child that is trapped in the body of an adult. Because of this, some consider him mentally unstable and a danger to society. In a way, his actions can be seen as dedicated to others: He took his own life so others wouldn’t have to worry about him. The whole story is painted lightly but has some very dark undertones of sadness, depression, and loneliness.

All in all, although I’m leaning more towards my second theory, I can’t find myself fully on one side or the other. Every time I read Seymour’s conversation with Sybil, I don’t get a full sense that he’s just being playful with her. (This may be because I have just watched way too many Law and Order: SVU episodes). In the end, I think Salinger’s goal was the give us a glimpse of a complex character that appears in some of his other works as well, and I believe that he did that very successfully.

Male Companionship + Fantasy

In a previous blogpost about Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, I discussed the importance of female companionship when it came to the soldiers fighting in the Vietnam war. It seems as though, to the soldiers, the women were their connection to home, a place some of them so longingly wanted to go back to. But, in Hemingway’s In Our Time, we don’t really see a huge want for a female connection. In fact, Nick, although he isn’t the only character throughout the book, feels more comfortable either by himself or with other men. Things just aren’t the same when he’s with women like Marjorie or Helen. Although he is having a baby with Helen and will be moving back to the States with her, he would much rather stay and ski with George. “The rush and sudden swoop as he dropped down a steep undulation in the mountain side plucked Nick’s mind out and left him only the wonderful flying, dropping sensation in his body” (107). It’s almost like men embody this fantasy experience that must end as Nick is obliged to get back to reality and his, supposed, wife and his life as a writer.

This sort theme of brushing aside women appears in other stories as well, like in “Soldier’s Home”, where Krebs admits that he doesn’t love his mother and is bothered by her nagging to get him out of the house. In the end, although he is supposed to take the car to see his father and get a job, he ends up going to see his sister’s softball game. When reading this, I didn’t see this as a loving act towards his sister, but more as Krebs running away from responsibilities pushed upon him by his parents, more specifically his mother. His sister just happens to be present at that outlet that he can run to. Similar to the women in Nick’s life, Krebs’ mother represents the reality of life at home. The need for a job and stable living. The need to fit in and be like everyone else. According to Krebs’ mother, Krebs needs to stop living in this fantasy world where life needs to be simple. He needs to take his life by the reins and go find his way.

I suppose this idea of the male characters feeling more connected to other male character originates with the more or less absence of female characters in each story. Not only is there a sketchy relationship between Krebs and his mother, but with Nick, we really only get a view of his father. His mother is referred to as the doctor’s wife, a demeaning role that seemingly shows her lack of importance in Nick’s development. We even see Nick, at the end of “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife”, choose to go out with his dad instead of obeying his mother’s wishes. When Nick is talking with Bill in “The Three-Day Blow”, both guys only talk about their fathers. I suppose the even slightest mention of their mothers may distract from the whole manly vibe they felt like they had going there, but it’s interesting how in both their conversation and mannerisms, Nick and Bill are trying to emulate their fathers. Their fathers represent this vision of how their future could be like, very swell.

This sort of reverence towards fathers is also evident in “My Old Man”, where Joe seems to be the only one who still looks up to his father. Everyone else sees through the old guy’s bright smile and charm and looks at his sketchy actions in the horse racing business. Whether or not Joe is aware of his old man’s shady business, (which I do think he is), Joe chooses to ignore it and focus on the positive light and how his old man is the one person in his life that he looks up to. Joe wishes to be like his old man, to have that kind of charmful, active, and exciting lifestyle. For Joe, he refuses to snap out of the fantasy that his father is this clean, inspiring figure in everyone’s life. Even when his old man dies, he refuses to come to the reality that his father wasn’t the best person in the business. With the absence of Joe’s mother, his father was the only figure Joe could look up to. Any tainted image of his old man would ruin the perfect fatherly figure that he revered so dearly.

All in all, although Hemingway and O’Brien are from different time periods, they highlight the qualities of different genders. In O’Brien’s work, women provide this connection that is fading as the soldiers spend long days and nights away from home. While, in Hemingway’s work, his characters tend to feel more comfortable when hanging around other men. It’s almost as if men represent this fantasy that lets people like Nick, Krebs, and even Joe escape from reality. For Nick, It’s skiing with George and fishing by himself, for Krebs, it’s a simple life at home, away from expectations, and for Joe, it’s the image of his father, one that hasn’t been tainted by his sketchy horseracing decisions. With women like Marjorie and Helen, “it isn’t fun any more” (34). What’s fun is skiing, fishing, and watching and enjoying horse racing just for the thrill; things that let one escape reality and live in this fantasy last where one is allowed to just enjoy the moment and not think about anything else. I suppose women embody the future, while most men in Hemingway’s In Our Time just want to think and enjoy the present.

Kid stuck in a Man’s body

In class on Thursday, we touched on a lot of different topics revolving around Hemingway’s character, Krebs, and how his homecoming wasn’t as settling as he wanted it to be. While away fighting, life just seemed simpler. He was a soldier with a set of instructions. All he had to do was do his job, while not getting killed in the process. Although some people might find war a stressful time, I suppose it wasn’t for Krebs. That could just be because his adrenaline was probably rushing 24/7, keeping him in that “fight or flight” mode. It interesting because, when studying the 1950s, we learn about the troubles soldiers had after coming home from the war. After constantly being on the look out for the enemy and wanting to keep alive, coming home to a peaceful environment where all they had to do was sit at a desk from 8-5 was a pretty drastic switch. People almost felt the need to be back in that war situation, physically and psychologically, and so major cases of PTSD sprung up as many men’s minds, in response to the lack of a war environment at home, brought the war back home.

Now, it would be an easy assumption to say that Krebs has PTSD, but I think his condition goes a little more in depth than the normal case. It seems as though Krebs wants his time in and before the war back, but not the militaristic side. Before the war, Krebs understood things. At the war, Krebs, again, understood things. But now, both things have changed as he has returned to his hometown and even the girls are different. According to Krebs, the world around him is changing, leaving him behind to wonder what has happened. Unfortunately, for Krebs, no one else understands his predicament. He is forced to tell lies in order to get someone to listen to him. So, Krebs figures he’s done with it all. He’s done trying to catch up with things he doesn’t feel is necessary. Of course, he does state that he wants a girlfriend, but he doesn’t want to have to work for one. He doesn’t feel the need to change in order to have one. To put a sappy side to it, he just wanted to be true to himself, and if a girl likes that kind of quality, she can decide to be with him. (Honestly, we should just call up Disney right now).

I suppose we should feel a little proud of Krebs for staying true to himself and not trying to be with the crowd. I would have almost been completely rooting for him if it had not been for his conversation with his mother. Although she was nagging him a little, something I definitely would not have appreciated, she did come from the side of a loving, caring mother who just wants her son to live a healthier lifestyle. Granted, she isn't’ really aware of what is going on in Krebs mind, but she’s just trying to help him adjust to life back at home. The way Krebs just blows her off and first says that he doesn’t love her (which I suppose goes hand-in-hand with his whole not lying phase), and then decides to watch his sister’s softball game instead of visiting his dad in his office. As Mr. Mitchell says, he does seem like a childish response: Blowing off one’s adult responsibilities to go watch sports or something. But, honestly, it almost fits in with how Krebs has been treated his entire life. Although we only get this little snippet of his life, it seems as though Krebs has been treated like a child all throughout his upbringing. Using words like “mommy” and having to get permission to take the car out seems almost like what a teenager would have to do, not a full grown man who has just returned home from the war.

One could also argue that Krebs’ mentality of wanting things in the world to come to him, not the other way around, could also be seen as less of a revelation and more of a man who is stuck in the past. As a kid, we sometimes believe that money grows on trees, our parents are superheroes, and things will just come easily to us. But, as we grow older and are forced to make our own way in the world, we see that life just isn’t that easy. By living at home and have the seemingly cradling parents, Krebs has yet to leave the nest and explore the world for himself. I feel like, until he moves out of his parents’ house, he will always be forced to be mamma’s boy and won’t fully mature and figure out how to work in the world he lives in.

All in all, I feel sympathetic for Krebs that he feels trapped inside, unable to speak to anyone about his true feelings. But I also feel like it’s time for him to grow up a little. I realize that sounds a little mean but his parents and their comfortingly stable income won't always be there to help him survive. He needs to put on his big-boy pants to find his way in the world before it completely leaves him behind. (Respectively, of course, because he still is a struggling veteran trying to making understandable adjustments).