Day For Bananafish

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.

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

“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

“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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

In the novel Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger uses the Glass family to deliver his beliefs on religion and society during this time. One way in which he does this is by delivering the novel into two short stories. One deals with Franny, a young female who is at a crossroad with her beliefs, and the other deals with her brother Zooey who tries to help his sister through her difficulties. Once this book was published in 1961, it was an instant hit and made its way to the best-seller list. Over the years there were many critical essays written discussing Salinger’s intended purpose for this novel. In A Preface for “Franny and Zooey” John P. McIntyre explores whether Salinger’s main

A Perfect Day for Bananafish, a short story by J. D. Salinger, was written in 1948, a harsh time for Americans; men were back in their homes, the women were able to see their husbands again, and the ‘VA’s were full. Only, the war hadn’t just ended. It had ended 3 years earlier. This was still too early for many men returning from the war. These men still had such terrible, mostly untreated, PTSD, that the VA hospitals released them before they were ready to return to the general population. This is what the story addresses; this is what Salinger was trying to show to all Americans. This isn't just any story; this is actually an anti-war propaganda showing how PTS and PTSD negatively affect veterans, the lack of support from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and the misunderstanding of the civilian population. It shows the terrible effect of war on both veterans and their loved ones. It shows what happens when our government doesn’t show appreciation to the defenders of our freedoms.

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.

Do you know about the bananafish? Deep inside someone's conscience they might be insane and unstable. They might be crazy and you might not even know it. Throughout the story of “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” Seymour’s true self is unveiled. The author of the wonderful story is a man named, J.D. Salinger. J.D. Salinger was born on January 1, 1919 and died on January 27, 2010. He was known for his stories that took place in metropolitan settings and had characters that were sensitive. Through the use of symbolism, characterization and foreshadowing, J.D. Salinger creates a tell-tale storytelling style of the story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish.

As time transitions from one century to the next, countries change and advance socially, and economically. However, this change is not always a positive one. In Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for a Banana Fish”, the protagonist, Seymour Glass, struggles to find his place in society after coming back from the Second World War. Seymour, battle-scarred, developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder while serving in the war and comes back to find that society has grown materialistic. By looking at Salinger’s use of irony and dialogue, readers can see miscommunication, negligence and alienation stemming from materialism in mainstream culture, which most readers do not see; this is important because it builds up the tension that will inevitably lead to Seymour’s decision to commit suicide.

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.