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Catcher In The Rye Ptsd Analysis

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J. D. 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 (italics???). 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 stories include characters who are apparently suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD, a mental disorder Salinger himself was a victim of, perhaps.
Salinger wrote several books and stories. His writing style is unique—using swear and slang words not only in dialogues …show more content…

He was not able to confront the intense media coverage following the success of The Catcher in the Rye and chose to live in solitude, in contrast with his younger persona who would revel in company of others.
Such a change in character could be, considering the circumstances, linked to the aforementioned post-traumatic stress disorder—a mental disorder which often affects soldiers following their traumatic experiences. As a biomedical research in University Cooperative of Colombia discovered, ‘situations occur that manage to destabilize the subject’s social, individual and family area’.2 When Salinger married Claire Douglas and their first child was born in 1955, the author began spending considerable time away from his family, locked in his cottage, where he worked on several more stories in …show more content…

He later tells her a story of ‘bananafish’ which eat so many bananas that they can not leave ‘banana holes’ and die. This discussion reveals that he is antipathetic of the consumer society they live in. Similarly, Sergeant X refuses to wear an Eisenhower jacket and to listen to ‘Bob Hope’ show on the radio—also implying that he refuses hope for a better life—which are a product of careless and shallow American society.
Dealing with the physical side of post-traumatic stress disorder, at the beginning of A Perfect Day for Bananafish Salinger mentions that the protagonist is pale and does not want people looking at his tattoo. Later in the story, Seymour loses control of himself when a woman glances at his feet, with him saying ‘I have two normal feet and I can't see the slightest God-damned reason why anybody should stare at them,’ suggesting that his appearance changed during the war and he can not bear people noticing

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