A Perfect Day For Bananafish Essay

I was never a huge fan of children. I was never the girl to babysit all of the kids on my block. I was never the girl to spark up a conversation with a little girl or boy. I am the younger sibling and I have no younger cousins; I was the baby of the family, so I never really had to deal with children growing up. I never know what to say when I am talking to children because they do not understand the world the same way I do. Up until now, I never thought of that as a good thing. Seymour, a character from A Perfect Day for a Bananafish, is in a similar situation after returning from war with a severe case of PTSD. He talks to the children because they do not understand all of the tragedies of the world. Seymour has an easier time communicating

Salinger displays that one’s happiness can be compromised due to the actions of your own self. Holden Caulfield lacked communication and saw everything as “phoney” or “depressing” which deselected happiness for him. Holden getting kicked out of school is one example; his lack of communication with the teachers and others put in him a miserable setting. Which resulted him in getting kicked out. Another example is when he went on his date with Sally Hayes. Everything was going swell until Holden started to speak about how he felt. Which flattened the setting of the date as Holden portrays himself “C’mon, lets get outa here,” I said. “You give me a royal pain in the ass, if you want to know the truth.” Boy, did she hit the ceiling when I said

“A Perfect Day for Bananafish” By J.D. Salinger is a short story with intense imagery, detail, and symbolism. The story starts and ends with imagery, while also being used heavily throughout the text. The story takes place late 1940’s / early 1950’s and starts with the narrator explaining Mrs. Glass waiting on the phone line to talk to her mom. Mrs. Glass is Seymour’s Wife and Seymour is the main character. The story begins with, “There were ninety-seven New York advertising men in a hotel, and, the way they were monopolizing the long-distance lines, the girl in 507 had to wait from noon till almost two-thirty to get her call through” (Salinger 1). This first sentence really starts off the story and makes the reader think. When reading the section about the men with the telephone lines and the young lady sitting in her room waiting with her phone. It creates an image in

In A Perfect Day for Bananafish a man with PTSD named Seymour had to feel the harsh rejection of society. Seymour was a war veteran who can back to America and was a little unstable because of it. He had many quirks that made him odd like he was scared of trees and yelled at someone for just looking at his feet. “He told him everything. At least, he said he did--you know your father. The trees. That business with the window. Those horrible things he said to Granny about her plans for passing away. What he did with all those lovely pictures

Jerome David Salinger, one of the most renown authors of the twentieth century. Salinger’s short stories “Nine Stories” was written after the WWII from the perspective of the war veterans. He successfully manages to create nine different short stories that all carry a theme of innocence. Meanwhile, Salinger expresses both this theme and his mysterious style of writing. Innocence is demonstrated in short stories, such as “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, “Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut”, “For Esmé – with Love and Squalor”. The appearance of children throughout the variety of short stories supports this innocence of a theme.

Jerome David Salinger, better known as J.D. Salinger was the renowned author of the short story, A Perfect Day for Bananafish and The Catcher in the Rye. A New York native born on January 1, 1919, J.D. Salinger began to get published in 1940 before entering what would change his life and writing forever, World War II. J.D. Salinger's writing can be seen as distant due to the events throughout the time he served in World War II. The trauma, locations, and time periods presented in, A Perfect Day for Bananafish has extremely similar composition therefore, the way Salinger writes is influenced with his experience in the war. As seen in, A Perfect Day for Bananafish one of the main characters, Seymour Glass is told to embody J.D. Salinger.

The writing style of Salinger is what makes this book amazing. He writes the book as if he were rambling on and on about something. With this style of writing, the constant stream of thoughts from Caulfield allows the audience to connect with him on a deeper, more emotional level. I noticed several different patterns he repeated in this book. One of the more prominent patterns was his tendency to state something then reassure himself in the next sentence. For example, when Salinger wrote,” I said it suave as hell. I really did.”. This technique made Caulfield come across as insecure and unsure of himself. Salinger also contradicted Caulfield’s beliefs in this novel numerous times. When Salinger writes, “I’m very fond of dancing, sometimes…”, it makes Caulfield’s character split into two different sides: one side of Caulfield wanting to conform to society to not feel lonely while the other not wanting to be a phony. Salinger repeats many different

At the end of “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” Seymour Glass commits suicide while on vacation in Florida with his wife, Muriel, by shooting himself in the head while Muriel sleeps on the twin bed next to him. It seems like a crazy thing to do. People would say that only someone with severe mental problems does something like that. Seymour is a military veteran, a poet, a “Wise Child,” and an extremely complicated man. A number of J.D. Salinger’s writings reveal pieces of Seymour’s character, including “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters,” Franny and Zooey,” and “Seymour — an Introduction,” which I read, hoping to gain more insight on why Seymour does what he does.

Salinger Later Published a story in 1948 titled “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” which started Salinger’s Career. In 1951 Salinger’s soon to be biggest seller The Catcher in the Rye was released. The major success of the novel had landed itself a spot on New York Times bestseller list for 3o weeks. “The success of The Catcher in the Rye did not persuade Salinger to publish another novel.” (Biography).The Catcher in the Rye actually received a massive amount of backlash from the public. It was actually the most banned book in the U.S., most people didn’t like it because it contained an enormous amount of profanity and accused of a communistic plot. Salinger later resided in Corning, New Hampshire where he lived the rest of his days living in the shadows. Salinger was a very anti-social person, Salinger had said “I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody” (Brainyquote). Salinger had even began to search for a deeper meaning in his life as became an avid follower of Buddhism and later a practitioner of zen yoga and Hinduism. Salinger had married several times with women much younger than him each ending in a disaster as he often mistreated

Throughout his life, well-known author J.D. Salinger wrote many of his famous stories about characters with inverted personalities that cause them to feel like outsiders to society. For example, the books The Catcher in the Rye and A Perfect Day for Bananafish, each by J.D. Salinger are mainly about two characters that feel isolated and separated from society.

In 1948, J.D. Salinger published the short story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” in the New Yorker. This event was a major step in his literary career. First, it brought Salinger serious critical acclaim. Second, it established a working relationship between the author and The New Yorker. The magazine offered Salinger a right of first refusal contract, and he subsequently published his new work almost exclusively in the New Yorker. Third, it marks the first published appearance of Seymour Glass, the oldest sibling in the Glass family. Salinger would go on to chronicle the lives of the Glass family siblings in a series of short stories and novellas.

Jerome David Salinger was a world-renowned American author, mostly known for his novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951). His first major success, however, was the short story ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’, first published in a 1948 issue of The New Yorker magazine. It was later published as a part of the short story collection Nine Stories (1953) among eight more stories, one of which is called ‘For Esmé—with Love and Squalor’ (1950). Both of the works include characters who are apparently suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD, a mental illness perhaps Salinger himself was a victim of.

J. D. Salinger was an early American writer who saw it as his mission to explore society and expose of many of its flaws. Salingers service in the military, his later writings, and then A Perfect day for Bananafish, one of his nine short exposing stories, serve to the fact that Salinger wrote to expose issues in society. Salinger had a deep distaste for the post World War 2 era. Many believe that he has a reputation for symbolism and mental insecurities that affect his characters in a negative and particular way because of his

     While reading any work by Salinger I think that he is trying to get you to look beneath just what you see on the surface, past looks, and money. After the Herriges interview he says that the first two passages that came into his mind where from A Perfect Day for Bananafish, and Zooey (129). In both of these stories the characters talk of not wanting physical aspects to be looked at. This is what I believe what Salinger is trying to do, get us to look at a person from the inside, who they really are. Again, in the Eppes interview he tells her that about why he doesn’t give autographs. He feels that they are meaningless, and that no author with respect gives them out (234). These are some of the reasons I feel that Salinger retreated to the woods, because these things happening in today’s society. Money and looks are what seem to matter these days.

The characters in Salinger?s ?A Perfect Day for Bananafish? seem to exist in opposite worlds. On one hand, Salinger creates Muriel to represent materialism and superficiality and on the other hand, he creates Sybil to provide justification of the child-like innocence rarely found in society. Salinger?s main character, Seymour, is aware of the superficiality expressed in Muriel?s world and chooses not to be apart of it. Seymour wants to be a part of the simple immaterial world that Sybil represents. Nevertheless, Seymour find himself trapped between two worlds unable to regain the one he desires. Therefore, Salinger bases ?A Perfect Day for Bananafish? on Seymour?s