This current cultural environment of materialism during the post-World War II period inspired J.D Salinger to pen the short story “A Perfect Day for a Bananafish.” It is a story that details the suicide of Seymour Glass. Salinger, in his story, critiques the materialist consumerism that arose after the second world war. The American society has not been severely impacted by the war in comparison to Europe. The country was also doing well finally, and the economic prosperity that arises during the war meant that a large number of the population has sufficient finances to make unnecessary purchases (Franssen, 158). This lead to the emergence of a society that was characterized by greediness and spendthrifts. Essentially, suicide is an accomplishment in a "phony" society that is based on materialism. The story is set in Florida in 1948. Salinger and his wife go to the state for a vacation. The story occurs three years after the World War II, and it is an important time in history. Salinger worked as a staff sergeant in the Army, and he served in the war from 1942 to 1946. He was awarded five battle stars for …show more content…
Due to his experiences in the war, Seymour finds solace in interacting with children. Their innocence has a calming effect on him, and it allows how to cope with his psychological distress that arose from the war. He considers children as straightforward and innocent who are not affected by suffering and greed that is the norm among the adult population. Seymour prefers interacting with children as his wife focuses on the earthy pleasures. She is too engrossed in class and appearances. Seymour finds it easier to interact with Sybil in a calm manner (Duvall, 69). By speaking a language that Sybil is accustomed to, he creates a closer relationship with the child. Essentially, this would mean that Seymour is trying to adopt to the child-like innocence by interacting with children rather than
J.D Salinger as born in New York City on January 1, 1919, he didn’t wright many novels in which he was renowned for. But one day, he did write one novel that brought him instant fame. In J.D. Salinger’s, Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, a sixteen-year-old teenage boy on the brink of adulthood, and he is trying to make sense of his existents and where he belongs. He also refuses to lose his innocence even though he knows is inevitable.
The "Misfit Hero" is a common trait of J.D. Salinger's short stories. The "Misfit Hero" is a character who is in conflict with him or herself and has good qualities and bad qualities. This hero is usually isolated and is attempting to break out of his darkness because he craves and requires love and warmth. These protagonists are unable to function effectively in society because they are so overcome with experience, love, and perceptions. An outsider sometimes reaches out by a romantic gesture that is ridiculous but tender, meaningful, and unexpected (French 305).
Salinger’s view of the world is lived out thought Holden – his persona. The novel is Holden’s steam of conscience as he is talking to a psychoanalyst “what would an psychoanalyst do…gets you to talk…for one thing he’d help you to recognise the patterns of your mind”. At the start of the novel it is addressed directly to us “if you really want to hear about it”. This gives us a sense of reality as though it is us that is the psychiatrist. We see the random thought patterns of Holden’s mind as he starts to feel more comfortable, Holden goes off on to many different tangents while he is talking. Salinger is using Holden as a type of easy way out to confess his view of the world.
The Catcher in the Rye by, J.D. Salinger is told through Holden the narrative in the story. The setting of the novel takes place in the 1940's early 1950's. Holden is sixteen years old and he has a lot of problems in his life. He becomes seriously depressed to the point he cannot deal with people and life around him. The 1940's were different from today. However, Holden Caulfield is similar to many other teenagers who go through the same problems.
Innocence and Conflict: comparing J.D. Salinger’s A Perfect Day for Bananafish, and Tim O’Brien’s How to Tell A True War Story
This essay outlines how J.D. Salinger creates a unique person in Holden Caulfield as he strives to find his place in the world as he moves from childhood to adulthood.. Holden narrates this story from the first person in flashback recounting events that happened to him over a two day span the previous year around Christmas. He narrates this story from some sort of mental hospital or institution. This is a clue as to how this journey affected him. This essay discusses how Holden views himself as he is his growing up, affected by interaction with other characters and how he is affected by loss of innocence moving from childhood to adulthood.
The dawn of the 20th century was met with an unprecedented catastrophe: an international technological war. Such a horrible conflict perhaps threatened the roots of the American Dream! Yet, most do not realize how pivotal the following years were. Post war prosperity caused a fabulous age for America: the “roaring twenties”. But it also was an era where materialism took the nation by storm, rooting itself into daily life. Wealth became a measure of success and a facade for social status. This “Marxist materialism” threatened the traditional American Dream of self-reliance and individuality far even more than the war a decade before. As it morphed into materialistic visions (owning a beautiful house and car), victims of the change blindly chased the new aspiration; one such victim was Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. As his self-earned luxury and riches clashed with love, crippling consequences and disasters occur. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby delves into an era of materialism, exploring how capitalism can become the face of social life and ultimately cloud the American Dream.
As Irving Howe once observed, “The knowledge that makes us cherish innocence makes innocence unattainable.” In a dynamic society, innocence evades even the youngest members of our world; it evades even the nonexistent members of our world. J.D. Salinger explores this elusive innocence in his short story, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish." Distinct similarities appear between the main character, Seymour Glass, and Salinger including the World War II experience and attraction for younger, more innocent people (Salerno). Salinger conveys this through Seymour’s preference of a young girl’s company over his own wife's company. Throughout the story, “Salinger constantly draws attention to himself and his precocious intellect” (Daniel Moran). “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” revolves around an army veteran post-World War II who visits a beach resort with his wife but spends more time there with the young Sybil Carpenter. Using a historical context of World War II and portrayal of many different characters, Salinger effectively depicts the story of a man in a desperate search for innocence. In “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” J.D. Salinger uses symbolism and figurative language to stress the concept of unattainable innocence.
... American Dream that was sold in society at the time after World War II can overshadow the actual meaning in real life. The “American Dream” is, in the end, defined as a comfortable living in a happy house. Instead, the materialistic society back then attempted to sell it in terms of appliances and products that were not needed, and unaffordable. They marketed it to the middle-class by attracting them to the aspect of credit, buying it with money that they don’t have. As Willy’s neighbor claimed at his funeral, Willy was merely a victim of his profession, leaving him with an unhealthy obsession with an image that was unrealistic, especially for them. This dissatisfaction with his life, and his misinterpretation of the “American Dream”, led to his downfall as a tragic hero, and a death that went in vain, as his son failed to follow the plan he had laid out for him.
The author of The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger checked himself into a mental hospital, shortly after World War II. He had PTSD. Not long after he left, he wrote his first story narrated by Holden Caulfield. Holden Caulfield also portrayed J.D Salinger and his PTSD. “What I was really hanging around for, I was trying ... to feel some kind of good-by. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse”
The toxicity of success is portrayed through famous literary works such as The Great Gatsby and The Death of a Salesman, while dealing with an overarching theme of American success. F. Scott Fitzgerald beautifully portrays a wealthy upper class society in The Great Gatsby, which has extreme corruption, hidden by it’s allure, while much of this upper class is pompous and selfish, as well as being so heavily judgemental that is it difficult to be accepted by these people. Arthur Miller’s The Death of a Salesman uses the narcissistic Willy Loman to shine light on the capitalist, middle class America, who’s life revolves around superficial success, which represents the overall flaw in the capitalist system: proclivity; this leads
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.
Tyler McKee Dr. Andrew Pisano English 104-09 29 March, 2016 Themes of “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “Soldiers Home” Ernest Hemingway and J.D. Salinger both had their respective pieces of literature published after the Great War. Hemingway’s In Our Time is a collection of short stories that was published after World War I in 1925. The “Soldiers Home” is one of the short stories that is within In Our Time. It is about a former Marine named Harold Krebs who has returned home from World War I. Krebs struggles with readjusting to everyday life and has become a shell of his former self.
...shire, his harrowing military service in WWII and the childhood he spent as a struggling prep school student is reflected directly through the actions and thoughts of Salinger’s most recognized character, Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger is able to give the world a peek into his private thoughts through those of Holden’s in a way that almost goes unnoticed, however the big picture shows that The Catcher in the Rye is Salinger’s very own loose autobiography.
For example, Holden gets kicked out of multiple schools throughout his life because of his grades before being sent to Pencey Prep in Agerstown, Pennsylvania and grew up in New York. According to “Biography”, “After flunking out of the McBurney School near his home in New York 's Upper West Side, he was shipped off by his parents to Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania.” Obviously, Salinger was trying to make his connections to Holden clear to his audience by relating his real life events to his work of fiction.