Day For Bananafish

The author J.D Salinger conveys the theme of the loss of innocence in title?? using symbolism.

In Salinger’s work, the two estates—the world and the cutely sensitive young – never really touch at all...Zooey and Franny and Buddy (like Seymour before them) know that the great mass of prosperous spirituals savages in our society will never understand them”(McIntyre 2). What is seems McIntyre is trying to say is that these characters’ ideas about religion and society don’t mix at all. They are two totally different entitles, and if they were to mix, then it would ruin the whole purpose of the novel itself. If these two did mix then the lessons learned through the novel would be lost. Franny along with the reader learn that it’s important to honor others even if they are hard to deal with for example like the feelings that Franny has towards her college professors. Also that this separations shows that the story is about love just as much as religion and spirituality.

Muriel, Seymour’s wife, and her parents, are representing the kind of America the soldiers in World War II return to. They are unaware of what exactly has taken place and what kinds of unexplainable cruelties these soldiers have experienced. On top of that, Muriel and her mother seem very self-centered and extremely shallow, which doesn’t make it any better for Seymour to return to, even though they seem to show great concern for him and his kind of behavior. For example, we are being told about Muriel that “she was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing. She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty.”

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.

“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

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.

The 1940’s were a significant period in American history. By 1939, The Great Depression was coming to an end and there were new changes being made in society. In entertainment, for the first time there were color motion pictures, and singers like Frank Sinatra were influencing and bringing together a younger audience. There was a sense of positivity that was coming back to America. All of that changed on December 7th 1941. Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor crippling the Pacific fleet and sending the United States into World War II. Fueled by the attack, many young men enlisted to join the U.S. Military. There was a sense of pride and dedication in many of those men. They felt it was their obligation and duty to serve their country, and to some extent, bring justice. They found out that war is hell. Many soldiers came back from World War II as completely different people. The carnage, conditions on the battlefields, and the emotional drains of war were elements these men had to carry with them. How were they able to cope with these psychological changes once they got back home to their families? In J.D. Salinger’s short story, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” we get a glimpse into one

When one reads J.D. Salinger’s work, they may not know that his writings are affected by how he lived his life. He shows relationship between him (childhood) and the characters in his writings, like connecting how he was as a child and making the characters act very similar. Salinger’s work is also based on what was going on or what he was going through while he was writing.

In J.D Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, the theme of pride is heavily explored and is essential to the personality and development of the main characters. This is done through recounting the experiences of members of the Glass family, a household of intellectuals who never seem to be satisfied with their present state of being. A former star on the radio show “It’s a Wise Child”, the eldest sibling, Seymour, who committed suicide later in his lifetime, felt it his duty to act as a religious guide to his younger siblings and instills in them the values of Buddhism- a factor which later contributed to much dissatisfaction amongst his younger brother and sister. Moreover, Salinger stresses the excessive pride of Franny, who views her contemporaries as inferior, and the resultant detriment of such a temperament. Zooey’s egotistic nature is likewise explored, along with the negative impact of his disillusionment with his education and those around him.

She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty. Muriel has an indifferent attitude about life. She seems simple and very insecure. Muriel finds it funny that her husband calls her "Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948." This tells the reader that she lacks self- esteem. Her simple attitude shows when she is talking to her mother on the phone about going to Bingo one night: "Anyway, after Bingo he and his wife asked me if I wouldn’t like to join them for a drink. So I did. His wife was horrible. You remember that awful dinner dress we saw in Bonwit’s window? The one you said that you’d have to have a tiny, tiny." Muriel implies that she disliked the lady because of what she was wearing. She alienates herself from society by believing that she is better that everyone else. Because of Muriel’s personality, Seymour cannot confide in her or feel any love in his marriage. This is why he turns to the little girl at the beach for companionship. Seymour finds a friend and a listener in Sybil. But the friendship of Sybil cannot mend Seymour’s broken heart. He gains some strength in himself when he finds a friend in Sybil, but he cannot seem to get past his failed marriage. Seymour is so desperate for love that he commits suicide: Then he went over to one of the pieces of luggage, opened it, and from under a pile of shorts and undershirts he took out an Ortgies caliber 7.65 automatic.

“I want to tell her Father, I really do” (On the Waterfront). In this quotation we see Terry Malloy being very hesitant in regards to telling Edie Doyle, that he was partially responsible for her brother’s death, this is a large turning point in the story because following this point in plot, Terry succombs many changes. He is deeply influenced by the physical and emotional beauty of Edie, and this causes him to go against the ideology of his older brother Charley and long term employer Johnny Friendly. Both of the works of literature aforementioned in this synthesis essay, seem to commonly overlap in the theme of love overcoming negativity and death.

J.D. Salinger’s novel, Franny and Zooey follows the story of Franny, a college-aged girl in the midst of an identity crisis, along with her brother, Zooey who is shown criticizing his family and himself throughout the piece. Both Franny and Zooey’s quasi-depression stems from the loss of their suicidal brother who once taught them about religion and spirituality and is often displayed throughout the novel through Salinger’s creation of characters and complex symbols. The book has become increasingly popular and relatable as it highlights themes of mental illness and loss of innocence in a young adult. Salinger’s overall message is relevant and relatable today to the audience as the characters overcome their egotistical peers, societal expectations and mourning of a loved one.

Since the bananafish has eaten so many bananas, the fish becomes “so fat they can't get out of the hole again. Can't fit through the door” (Salinger). Naturally, once the bananafish dies in the hole after becoming trapped and contracting “banana fever. It's a terrible disease” (Salinger). The death of the bananafish through its own gluttony heightens the effect of the motif of death throughout the short story.

In his short story, “For Esmé, with Love and Squalor,” J.D. Salinger utilizes the function of secondary characters to expose the correlation between the contrasting ideas of idealism and cynicism. The three minor characters of Esmé, her brother Charles, and Corporal Z all play different but necessary roles in the mental and emotional development of the main character, Sergeant X. While the characters of Esmé and Charles represent the best traits of humanity, their lifestyles contrast that of Corporal Z, a pessimistic and rude war veteran. After Salinger sets a standard of ideal human nature through the two siblings and their interaction with Sergeant X, he purposefully introduces Corporal Z into the story to help demonstrate the differences between the personalities of idealistic and cynical people; in doing so, Salinger reveals relationships between youthful innocence and idealism, as well as arrogance and cynicism.

During World War II, the United States was in desperate need of resources, after the events of the Great Depression. Since men were drafted into the war, unemployment rates dropped and the U.S. had successfully pulled themselves out of the depression, while also creating a new kind of materialism. Salinger, the author of “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, sets the mood for the story immediately. The story opens up with Muriel sitting in her hotel room, painting her nails and fixing her Saks blouse, the same hotel as some New York advertising salesmen. Later in the story, Seymour creates an imaginative creature called the Bananafish, who are known to encounter bananas in a cave and eat so many bananas, that they are unable to fit back out through the hole.