Summary Of The Short Story Of 'A Perfect Day For Bananafish'?

Each year, thousands of soldiers travel miles away from home, risking their lives to defend their country with a mentality of being the predator and not the prey-”kill or be killed.” These soldiers respected by most citizens for their actions- ending the lives of others. While people focus on these dauntless actions, nobody seems to question how the war emotionally and mentally affects these soldiers. Soldier's Home, by Ernest Hemingway, and Speaking of Courage, by Tim O'Brien, are both stories that explore and describes a veteran’s post-war return and adjustment to home. Hemingway writes a story about a soldier's detachment to his loved ones and unwillingness to readjust to the life he had departed from.

Ernest Hemingway’s “soldier’s Home” is a story about a soldier who leaves to World War I as one man, and comes back another. The story talks about the changes a man goes through while at war and his failure to fit back into the society. Krebs returns home but he does not feel at home. When he is with his family, he feels as if he no longer belongs there. As much as Krebs believes in the truth, people around him force him to lie. The story demonstrates the conflict between society’s expectation of Krebs to fit in to its traditional values and Krebs value, which has melodramatically altered after his war experience. Eventually, Krebs chooses to isolate himself because he feels like an outcast and detaches himself from ambition, love, relations, and religion.

​For many years war has been a huge part of history. Thousands of people go to war for their country and come back physically fine. But what people usually do not notice is the emotional distress and burden that the veterans come back with on their back. That is what drives the purpose of the book in “The things they carried”. Tim O’Brien wrote this book in way that shows how war can be part of the soldier for the rest of their life. Coming home veterans have to deal with individual sufferings, but the emotional baggage the soldiers bring also effect the people around them. The characters in the book the “The things they carried” portray this very well.

The detrimental effects of war on soldiers coming home has been an issue since the beginning of war itself. It has been known by many names; shell shock during WWI, battle fatigue during WWII, and PTSD in modern times. The effects of war is an age old issue addressed in The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. O’Brien uses women as a literary element by portraying women as fantasized for their innocence at first, but are really a metaphor to explain the changes that soldiers experience as a result of war, all to explore the damaging effects that war and PTSD have on the men fighting it.

The emotional stress that most soldiers carry with them during times of war is due to their inexperience and age. The majority of men who fought in the Vietnam war ranged from ages early as eighteen to their early twenties. Among these men, were sons, spouses, friends, boyfriends, and students, who could not understand the thought of war, killing, or contend with their friends’ unexpected deaths. From the beginning of the story, O’Brien the author of “The Things They Carried” uses specific details and illustrations to show readers what the experience was like for the men during the Vietnam war. Among the many things that the men carry were guilt, fear, grief, and stress. Throughout the story O’Brien emphasizes the dreadful events that

Soldier’s Home is a story about the experiences of a soldier returning from war. The narrative starts with a description of an image or photograph of Harold Krebs. Krebs is the main character of this story. He was a young man who was attending the Methodist College in Kansas before he had to enlist in the Marines to find in the war (Hemingway 111-116). The opening picture is an increasingly significant source of contrast between the young man who went to war and the one who comes back who has become silent and alienated after coming home. Krebs comes back in 1919 even though the war ended in 1918. His return is not marked by celebrations and parades that were often given to the young soldiers who had managed to come home early. Rather, Krebs finds out that the people are not overly excited about his news of the war unless he lies and exaggerates about his role during the war (Hemingway 111-116).

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

Ernest Hemingway’s story “Soldier’s Home” demonstrates how the soldiers of today may feel when they get back home from war. Even though this story was written in 1925 a lot of today’s soldiers can probably relate to this story. When Krebs came home it seems as though he felt unappreciated and that people didn’t care. In the story Krebs felt as though he had to make up stories to get the attention of other. Much like the soldiers today, he wanted and needed someone to just listen. It seems as though he felt lost when he came back to the United States (Baerdemaeker 55).

This book is an account of how miserable, heartbreaking, and hard it is to live during the time of war. Anonymous has said “Back in the attic apartment, I can’t really call it a home; I no longer have a home”. With these words, we can see and feel that people who have witnessed and lived the war have experienced a difficult life that is beyond words, and not being able to feel that she belongs anywhere. “Home” is an

A Soldier’s Life-Changing Experience In life we are given opportunities that benefit us for the better. Sometimes when given opportunities, you lose motives you used to have. Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home” reflects on how a soldier returns from the war, and in his eyes, life was different. Readjustment to the way life was at home showed how his outlook changed.

Although it provides an important perspective into the lives of post war veterans, Hemingway’s novel is merely a fictional story and the events that occur in the book are not representative of any real life occurrences. Hemingway is able to accurately able to depict the shift of morale views that occurred after the war.  People went from emotional and restrained and god fearing, to liberated, materialistic, and pessimistic. Following the First World War, Veterans lost a belief in objective morality and correspondingly lost the belief in love and capacity to make deep connections with people. The characters within this novel face social and personal problems, whether it be physical ailments or mental disabilities, both of which impede their lives completely. Hemingway’s ability to capture and and present the overwhelming emotions that encompassed the Lost Generation is what makes his novel effective and historically

Ernest Hemingway’s short story, Soldier’s Home, tells the story of Harold Krebs, a U.S. Marine who fought in World War 1. Hemingway gives suggestion that Krebs was too cowardice to have actually participated in the war. The short story focuses on his return to his hometown in Oklahoma, and how nothing changed while he was away. Hemingway concentrates on Krebs feelings and emotions towards being home after experiencing such horrids, how he connects with people, old friends and family.

Never before had so many soldiers faced psychological disorder after a war as soldiers in World War I faced. Soldiers now had issues when returning from war with their mental health and suffered severe side effects from the war. How someone changes from before war, during war, to returning home from war is demonstrated in “Soldier’s Home”. In Ernest Hemingway’s modernist short story, “Soldier’s Home,” the passage of time from before World War I to after, demonstrates the psychological damage war had done on the central character, Krebs, after he returns and has to adjust back to everyday life and making personal relationships.

In the short story a perfect day for banana fish, materialism plays a huge role throughout the story. Materialism strongly influences Muriel and Seymour's relationship. "She washed her comb and brush. She took the spot out of the skirt of her beige suit. She moved the button on her Saks blouse. She tweezed out two freshly surfaced hairs in her mole. When the operator finally rang her room, she was sitting on the window seat and had almost finished putting lacquer on the nails of her left hand" (Salinger 3). The story begins with Muriel wearing a beige sacks suit, painting her nails, and waiting for her call to go through in her hotel room. Seymour has no interest in anything to do with materialistic items. Seymour is always assuming Muriel is doing something expensive or unnecessary instead of spending time with him, "Thats hard to say sybil. She may be in one of a thousand places. At the hairdresser's. Having her hair dyed mink. Or making dolls of poor children, in her room" (Salinger 6). Muriel's and Seymour's relationship was one of the main reason why Seymour had psychological issues; because they do not connect well with each other. Seymour and her have such fundamental differences which sets her apart from Seymour. Seymour and Muriel do not truly communicate a single time throughout the entire story. Muriel is unable to see Seymour's desperate need for help because she is blinded by her obsession with herself.

Salinger’s use of the Bananafish is symbolic of the greedy nature inevitably found in humans. The bananafish is Seymour’s invented sea creature that is the epitome of selfishness and gluttony; it eats an abundance of bananas and eventually dies of banana fever. The bananafish is significant in conveying how people are consumed with superficial and shallow desires and how their greed will lead to their demise. Seymour tells Sybil the story of the bananafish stating that once they get in the hole where there is many bananas, “they behave like pigs… and eat as many as seventy-eight bananas” (14). The bananafish draws parallels to the gluttony of people like Muriel, whose life revolves around consumerism. By saying they behave like pigs, Salinger conveys how individuals lose rationality and are overcome with a desire for more and more objective things. Seymour tells Sybil that the bananafish, “eat so many bananas they can’t get out of the banana hole” (10). This shows that once individuals are introduced to the greed and pettiness prevalent in society, it’s impossible to avoid. Seymour characterizing the bananafish in such ways represents his struggle to deal with the society he was once assimilated in, after fighting in war. As