A Perfect Day for Bananafish

American writer James A. Baldwin had once said, “People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them" (BrainyQuote). One is usually told to put the past behind. For some, it is a struggle to do so. Sometimes the effects of one’s past linger, making an ‘ordinary’ future seem impossible. J.D. Salinger, a World War II veteran, suffered from a lingering mental illness after he returned from the War. He published "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" only three years later. Salinger's personal post-war struggle is evident in the story’s theme: loneliness and uncertainty in following a difficult situation. The story’s main character, Seymour, and Salinger share the burden of feeling outcast and alone upon returning from War. Both the author and his created character search for the innocence they lost in the war. Seymour, in particular, seems to see it in the youth of children.
"A Perfect Day for Bananafish" is set during post-World War II at a beach resort in Florida, U.S . To summarize, Seymour, a clearly disturbed war veteran, has taken his wife to the beach where the two had vacationed before the war. At the beach, Seymour meets and becomes fascinated with Sybil, a little girl who he enlists to help him search for a made up "bananafish". "Salinger appears to have an inherent understanding of dramatic technique, and he is able to integrate this into his writing of short stories" (Shurman). The story's structure is similar to the flow of a play with on-point dialogue and moments of rising intensity. Throughout the short story, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish", J.D. Salinger effectively develops the themes of loneliness, uncertainty and pain in a difficult situation by using symbolism, foreshadowing, and mood. As the story unfolds, ...

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...t stuck in the hole. People, like Seymour, create illusions and imaginary images to relieve themselves of emotional strain and suffering. It seems the life of the bananafish before they swim into the hole symbolizes Seymour’s life before the war; and once in the hole, his life after the war. Seymour then explains that all of the bananafish will die: “Well, they get banana fever. It’s a terrible disease’” (Salinger 323). The bananafish is Seymour and the terrible disease that he has is metaphorical to the war when he loses his youth and innocence. William Wiegand attempts to ‘solve’ the riddle of Seymour’s death when he argues that Seymour is ‘a bananafish himself’ who has ‘become so glutted with sensation that he cannot swim into society again’” (Lane). “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” refers Seymour’s idea about his day, his internal disease, and his ultimate death.