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Summary Of ' Salinger 's ' The Doctrine Of Love '

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Short Story Analysis Paper The majority of his works, J.D. Salinger has implemented many replicated themes. Love is possibly the most prevalent throughout all of his writings and is displayed in such works as “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” “The Laughing Man,” “For Esme—With Love and Squalor,” “Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes,” “Teddy,” and “Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut.” Salinger uses the element of Love to bring about more meaning in the stories and depth to the each of their plots, and does so by displaying the element of Love in the characters and their situations in the stories. “…The doctrine of love he preaches represents a valid and necessary response to the world and suggests the author’s putative answer to the problems seen …show more content…

He effectively shows different elements of love itself: the presence of it, the absence of it, and the emotional effects that are present when one of these types of love is shown.
Possibly Salinger’s most famous short story, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, expresses the theme of love in the scene where Sybil and her mother talk and her mother seems to have no interest in the child anymore. This is the “absence of love” that Salinger brings about. Sybil tries to engage her mother in conversation about Seymour, which brings about a communication error where her mother understands “see more glass”, rather than “Seymour Glass”. Rather than trying to understand her daughter, Mrs. Carpenter states, “…stop saying that. It’s driving Mommy absolutely crazy” (Salinger 6). Her mother seems indifferent to the fact that she does not understand her daughter, so rather she ignores her and “… [goes] up to the hotel and [has] a Martini...” (Salinger 6). Love seems to be very lacking in this relationship aside from the minimal love that most every mother has for their child. Salinger shows this relationship to build Sybil up into a more dynamic character. She is no longer just the slightly annoying little girl, but rather she is now the troubled little girl who is neglected and just wants to be showed attention and care. His

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