Short Story Club: A Perfect Day for Bananafish by Salinger

[King Mob]

This first half of August we will be reading and discussing A Perfect Day for Bananafish by J.D. Salinger

[spookymulder93]

So can you find this story online?

[OrphanPip]

So can you find this story online?

http://www.miguelmllop.com/stories/stories/bananafish.pdf

[Tallon]

Okay i just read it, it's very short and interesting. I was happy to be reunited with a member of the Glass family, having read and very much enjoyed Franny and Zooey years ago.

It's hard to say much without it being a spoiler, it being very short and unusual. I did like it, it has that Salinger quirky sense of humour and leaves you thinking that you want to learn more about the main character, anhd the final line makes you want to read the whole thing over again, which i suppose is a good quality in a short story.

[Sapphire]

Agreed.

I had no idea where he would be going with this story. The talk on the phone in the beginning made me think the "him" they were talking about would never appear in the story itself, untill the mother started to say his real name (Seymour). I was especially intrigued by

"Did he try any of that funny business with the trees?"
It really makes me wonder what that could have been - we'll never find out. As a lot of things in this story. But that's why it is a story and not a whole novel.

I really enjoyed the talk with the little girl, though there was a slight feeling of "uneasy" through it all which I can not quite place. Maybe it was the kissing of the feet which caught me of guard.

I think in the end the intention might have been to make the reader think the woman is in danger - as her mother warned her about the guy.

he looked at the girl
He made me wonder there for a second...

[Tallon]

yeah it made me wonder too. I think the funny business with the trees probably means he crashed a car into a tree, as a suicide attempt or a cry for help.
I enjoyed the talk with the little girl too, i think he admires her innocence opposed to adults who he treats badly (granma, the girl in the elevator, doesn't appear to have a good relationship with his wife). He seems to have post-traumatic stress.
One thing i cannot work out is the bananafish story itself, is this just childsplay or is it a metaphor for something else?

[Sapphire]

Yes, probably a suicide attempt. Her refering to him staying close to the white line and not trying to look at the trees. The car which her dad should get fixed... It fits.

Muriel does mention the war to her mother, as that the hotel isn't the same since. And

"When I think of how you waited for that boy all through the war-I mean when you think of all those crazy little wives who--"
So he seems to have been away during the war, probably in active duty - though it is never mentioned that he actually was a soldier. When they mentioned the tattoo, I actually thought he might have been in a concentration camp. The tattoo being an illusion and him having some form of PTSD makes more sense though, I think.

I am not sure about him treating adults on the whole badly. Maybe it is rather that he feels he can not be himself around them - they don't play along with his stories, like the bananafish. He could have made up a wonderful story about his feet, I'm sure. But then again, that might be the innocence you're talking about.

I am not sure about the bananafish as a metaphor. I do expect it to be there, but I do not see what it can be, at all. Maybe it is he himself, who has been looking for a hole/home and now he has found it, he can not live with it - he has eaten too much. He has gotten banana fever, he has lost his mind... Just a thought.

[Virgil]

Oh good. I'll read it this afternoon.

[MaineTim]

I am not sure about the bananafish as a metaphor. I do expect it to be there, but I do not see what it can be, at all. Maybe it is he himself, who has been looking for a hole/home and now he has found it, he can not live with it - he has eaten too much. He has gotten banana fever, he has lost his mind... Just a thought.

Or could you read the bananafish as Seymour's view of at least some of the adults in his world? His wife seems pretty self-involved and materialistic, maybe the bananafish are his view of the "bloat" of adult decadence that he might find in her, for example? Perhaps "banana fever" is the "fever" of materialism and acquisition that he disdains in adults.

[Virgil]

I guess the logical place to start with the discussion of this stroy is the ending.


[color=blue]Agreed.

I had no idea where he would be going with this story. The talk on the phone in the beginning made me think the "him" they were talking about would never appear in the story itself, untill the mother started to say his real name (Seymour). I was especially intrigued by

It really makes me wonder what that could have been - we'll never find out. As a lot of things in this story. But that's why it is a story and not a whole novel.

I think Muriel says that Seymore believes he sees the trees were moving in front of the car. The whole story is a progression of Seymore trying to shock his wife, his in-laws, the little girl, and the woman in the elevator.

In many ways, this passage is significant:


On the sub-main floor of the hotel, which the management directed bathers to use, a woman with zinc salve on her nose got into the elevator with the young man.
"I see you're looking at my feet," he said to her when the car was in motion.
"I beg your pardon?" said the woman.
"I said I see you're looking at my feet."
"I beg your pardon. I happened to be looking at the floor," said the woman, and faced the doors of the car.
"If you want to look at my feet, say so," said the young man. "But don't be a God-damned sneak about it."
"Let me out here, please," the woman said quickly to the girl operating the car.

Notice the reaction of this woman. This is not the reaction of his wife or of Sybil's. The woman runs out because she has obviously been in contact with what appears to be an unstable man. Notice Murial's character.


She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing. She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty.

Muriel is incapable of being shocked. It reaches a point where Seymore is doing whatever he can to shock his wife. In light of that, do you think the ending makes sense?



I really enjoyed the talk with the little girl, though there was a slight feeling of "uneasy" through it all which I can not quite place. Maybe it was the kissing of the feet which caught me of guard.

I think in the end the intention might have been to make the reader think the woman is in danger - as her mother warned her about the guy.

He made me wonder there for a second...

Are you reacting to the possibility of pedophilia? It does come close, but I cannot find any themes in here about pedophilia. I read Seymore as a person who has regressed to a child-like mentality, probably as a result of the trauma he suffered in the war. Seymore cannot seem to live in the adult world. There is an innocence there, and that play between him and Sybil I think should be read as play between pre-puberty (pre-sexual) children. Now I could be wrong there, since Seymore is obviously an adult and Sybil is roughly three I think. But there is no attempt at anything other than play, and we do not get any suggestion of sexual deviance. I think Seymore is just a child in an adult body.

What is especially well crafted in this story are the dichotomies. There is on the one hand the fabulous extended dialogue between Muriel and her mother in the first half of the story and there is the fabulous extended dialogue between Seymore and Sybil in the second hand. The first dialogue is as I see it a dialogue of adulthood and of reality. The second dialogue is of childhood and of fantasy. Notice the dichotomies: reality/fantasy, adulthood/childhood, calm natured/hyper natured, pre-puberty innocence/post puberty sexuality, material world/mental world, serious/play, sanity/insanity, life/death.

[LMK]

There are many holes that the reader is left to fill in. The "funny business with the trees" which most likely is how the car became damaged; that "they want four hundred dollars, just to --” My initial read is that they think him dangerous to others (and possibly their property), I don't think suicide came to mind. Perhaps it did...another hole?

I agree he was a traumatized soldier, not an uncommon thing, I would imagine; however the mother and father were greatly concerned, so I think that his mental state being impaired is a foregone conclusion.

The wife might be in denial for several reasons, and I do think she was in denial; waiting the long years of the war, he was her husband, and she was absorbed in things, she didn't make any effort to answer a phone call she had to wait hours to be put through, until she had her things where she wanted them.

The reference to Mrs. Glass by the narrator as 'girl' yet her husband as 'young man' or 'man' caught my attention.

The little girl seemed to have previously spent a lot of time visiting with Mr. Glass. She was jealous of some other wee one sitting on the piano bench with him, but, seemed disturbed (as she should be) when he kissed her foot. This leads me to believe that it is the first gesture of this kind he has made towards her. Perhaps this was the final banana that he needed to eat so that there was no way out of the hole...?

The elevator foot thing might have been a guilt or anger response to his kissing the girls foot, or the knowing of what he had set in motion. Though, not discounting the difficulty he seemed to have in dealing with adults.

Since the title of the story is A Perfect Day for Banana Fish it should be given some focus. Personally, I can't help but think that he was in the hole, the fever too far gone and he was to die that day. Though, again, not discounting some of the comments made about adult materialism. Perhaps he considered everyone a banana fish, but the 'Perfect Day' led me to return to the thought that it was him and his death.

My favorite was his new pet name for his wife; it spoke volumes


Are you reacting to the possibility of pedophilia? It does come close, but I cannot find any themes in here about pedophilia. I read Seymore as a person who has regressed to a child-like mentality, probably as a result of the trauma he suffered in the war. Seymore cannot seem to live in the adult world. There is an innocence there, and that play between him and Sybil I think should be read as play between pre-puberty (pre-sexual) children. Now I could be wrong there, since Seymore is obviously an adult and Sybil is roughly three I think. But there is no attempt at anything other than play, and we do not get any suggestion of sexual deviance. I think Seymore is just a child in an adult body.

I agree, but still he was an adult and it seems even Sybil was bothered by the play. No, I do not think it was pedophilia at all, but a final realization perhaps that he can't play nice in the adult world, and doen't fit in with the child world, he's stuck in the hole and can't fit back through the door.

I also agree with your comments on the dichotomies and mostly the dialogues; in the first the mother to a child who is an adult and in the second an adult who is more of a child to a playmate child.

[Scheherazade]

Will be reading the story tomorrow but here is one thing I wondered when I read it for the first time:

The name "Sybil" comes from Greek and means "prophet/prophetess". Do you think this is significant?

[spookymulder93]

The ending was great. I like the conversation between the woman and the mother. I like how they kept cutting each other off.

I think Seymour was a pedophile. What was his problem with the woman looking at his feet?

[Virgil]

The little girl seemed to have previously spent a lot of time visiting with Mr. Glass. She was jealous of some other wee one sitting on the piano bench with him, but, seemed disturbed (as she should be) when he kissed her foot. This leads me to believe that it is the first gesture of this kind he has made towards her. Perhaps this was the final banana that he needed to eat so that there was no way out of the hole...?

I can read the jealousy in two different ways. Either it's a childish thing or it's a sign of her future adult behavior. I lean toward the future adult behavior in the real world. Not sure what you're saying about the banana.


The elevator foot thing might have been a guilt or anger response to his kissing the girls foot, or the knowing of what he had set in motion. Though, not discounting the difficulty he seemed to have in dealing with adults.
I'm going to have to disagree there. I think it's part of his behavior toward the adult world. It's probably in the same vein as how he relates to his in-laws. I don't think it's related to the girl's foot, but feet are a common element.


Since the title of the story is A Perfect Day for Banana Fish it should be given some focus. Personally, I can't help but think that he was in the hole, the fever too far gone and he was to die that day. Though, again, not discounting some of the comments made about adult materialism. Perhaps he considered everyone a banana fish, but the 'Perfect Day' led me to return to the thought that it was him and his death.
Yes, i think there's a relationship between the fantasitic banana fish and his life and the irony of a perfect day which culminates in his suicide.


My favorite was his new pet name for his wife; it spoke volumes
"Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948." There is an resentment toward adult sexual behavior in this story. Maybe it's even a repulsion towards it. Notice in his dialogue with Sybil;


"Next time, push her off," Sybil said. "Push who off?"
"Sharon Lipschutz."
"Ah, Sharon Lipschutz," said the young man. "How that name comes up. Mixing memory and desire." He suddenly got to his feet. He looked at the ocean. "Sybil," he said, "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll see if we can catch a bananafish."
"Mixing memory and desire." That's out of T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, right at the beginning:


APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Among the various themes of The Wasteland is the death of the spiritual in modern life, especially as seen in sexual relations. Salinger has created a wasteland, where Seymore is living in a spiritual wasteland where the magic of life is only accessible in the childhood imagination.


I agree, but still he was an adult and it seems even Sybil was bothered by the play. No, I do not think it was pedophilia at all, but a final realization perhaps that he can't play nice in the adult world, and doen't fit in with the child world, he's stuck in the hole and can't fit back through the door.
Yes. You know, perhaps you and Sapphire are right, the innocent play with the child startles him into realizing he cannot live in that world. I'm going to have to amend my reading there. I think you guys are right.


Will be reading the story tomorrow but here is one thing I wondered when I read it for the first time:

The name "Sybil" comes from Greek and means "prophet/prophetess". Do you think this is significant?

My initial thought was I don't see the connection, but based on how I just amended my reading of the story in my response to LMK (just above), I think she does serve as a prophetess toward his realization that he does not fit in the child world. Not sure if she's really a prophetess but a vehicle toward that epiphany.

I've been reading this story for twenty years. It's amazing how one gets a fuller understanding in dialogue with a group. :) :)

[King Mob]

I've been reading this story for twenty years. It's amazing how one gets a fuller understanding in dialogue with a group. :) :)

I agree. I just read it for the first time, and now I read all these comments and the story starts to get bigger and more complex.

And as regards the epiphany, do you think there is really one? I mean, was Seymour already planning to commit suicide or there is that moment of Joyce-like epiphany? I like more the epiphany theory but it seems rather hard to recognise the moment or his change.
Maybe the feet episode in the elevator is to show that final straw. Seymour kisses Sybil's foot because he thinks it's beautiful, it belongs to the childhood world, to fantasy. Maybe he thought his own feet were like that but now he realizes they are not.
But then, on the elevator, he thinks the woman is looking at his feet because they are not normal, they have something different, something childish, and so he realizes he doesn't belong to the grown-up world either.
The feet may be the vehicle to show the epiphany, as he realizes he doesn't belong completely to either world.

Edit: One more thing. The Wasteland reference, i hadn't noticed at all, thanks Virgil! But there is some mystery there, why do you think that phrase pops up in Seymour's head at that particular moment?

[LMK]

The little girl seemed to have previously spent a lot of time visiting with Mr. Glass. She was jealous of some other wee one sitting on the piano bench with him, but, seemed disturbed (as she should be) when he kissed her foot. This leads me to believe that it is the first gesture of this kind he has made towards her. Perhaps this was the final banana that he needed to eat so that there was no way out of the hole...?


I can read the jealousy in two different ways. Either it's a childish thing or it's a sign of her future adult behavior. I lean toward the future adult behavior in the real world. Not sure what you're saying about the banana.

In short; I was trying to suggest it was the last straw, a realization that he doesn't belong.

Perhaps my analogy was not as clear as I'd intended, but I was trying to paint him as a banana fish who swam into the hole and had eaten the one-too-many-eth banana that put him over the limit to swim out through the door.

I repeat the concept later in my post which you have already commented on:

I agree, but still he was an adult and it seems even Sybil was bothered by the play. No, I do not think it was pedophilia at all, but a final realization perhaps that he can't play nice in the adult world, and doen't fit in with the child world, he's stuck in the hole and can't fit back through the door.






"Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948." There is an resentment toward adult sexual behavior in this story. Maybe it's even a repulsion towards it. Notice in his dialogue with Sybil;

I'm not yet convinced there is anything sexual in the story, the name he begins to call his wife is "Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948" he might have called her just a tramp or Miss World Tramp of 1948, but with all that he may have experienced in the war it is the spirit; something much deeper or beyond sex that he identifies with or is looking for. And the fact that she giggles when disclosing the new name to her mother suggests she is without a clue.



Will be reading the story tomorrow but here is one thing I wondered when I read it for the first time:

The name "Sybil" comes from Greek and means "prophet/prophetess". Do you think this is significant? I did not know this; interesting. In my opinion it seems that their last interaction certainly may have caused him to see what he had not seen before, unbeknownst to her and yet probably because of her. Does that qualify as a prophetess? Perhaps in a general way, it does. Thanks for sharing that nugget with us.

[downing]

Hello everyone! I read this again now and I keep wondering why do you all say that he didn't fit in the children's universe? To me, the discussion with Sybil is just ok, except the fact that she is disturbed by him kissing her feet. Ideas anyone? It would help me a great deal.

[Sapphire]

@MaineTim

Or could you read the bananafish as Seymour's view of at least some of the adults in his world? His wife seems pretty self-involved and materialistic, maybe the bananafish are his view of the "bloat" of adult decadence that he might find in her, for example? Perhaps "banana fever" is the "fever" of materialism and acquisition that he disdains in adults.
Yes, that's also an idea :D

@Virgil

The whole story is a progression of Seymore trying to shock his wife, his in-laws, the little girl, and the woman in the elevator.
I never got the impression that he was willingly trying to shock people. Looking at it in this way, it means that Seymore isn't trying to fit in. He is actually actively trying NOT to fit... An interesting thought, but I'm not sure what to do with it :blush: :lol:
He isn't happy when he has shocked the woman in the elevator though. He doesn't seem the least bit satisfied with himself - if it is his goal to shock, wouldn't he feel some kind of satisfaction at that point?

Are you reacting to the possibility of pedophilia?
Actually, I was trying not to :) But it probably is... I just hate it that my mind goes there :crazy: I liked your explination why it isn't. I have to say though: kissing somebodies feet while you're just friends or maybe even just acquaintances is a bit unsettling.

What is especially well crafted in this story are the dichotomies.
Great find!

"Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948." There is an resentment toward adult sexual behavior in this story. Maybe it's even a repulsion towards it.
I think LMK is right to point out "Spiritual", but it also makes me wonder whether that isn't exactly what you mean. :crazy: I'll try to explain :) Him focussing on the Spiritual Tramp, proofs your point that there is an resentment toward adult sexual behaviour - which might not have been there when it was "just" Tramp. I know it can be a demeaning word, but can it be cute as a nick-name? Or maybe not cute... but a man who's comfortable with his wife's sexual avances might call her "Miss Tramp 1948" in the bedroom?
Now he calls her Miss Spiritual Tramp, this might mean she has a lot of different (spiritual) ideas. She's game for all sorts of thoughts. Or it might mean that she tramples them all, being overly materialistic. I really don't know what to think of it. :crazy: does it show? :lol:

@LMK

The reference to Mrs. Glass by the narrator as 'girl' yet her husband as 'young man' or 'man' caught my attention.
I hadn't noticed that yet... But then again I did not realy caught on to the fact that Seymour and Muriel are the Glass-family :brickwall. I was already wondering why Sybil was talking to her mother about glass... Not that this explains it, but it might be referring to her wanting to meet Seymour again?

In my opinion it seems that their last interaction certainly may have caused him to see what he had not seen before, unbeknownst to her and yet probably because of her.
It is also a possibility that his previous talks with Sybil went the same way - he is just fooling around, jumping from one subject to an other, using childrens logic. It had to stop somewhere, and just because it ends when he kisses her feet does not have to mean it changes anything in Seymour - that he realizes something. Or maybe it does, for why else would he reach for that gun? ...

@Scheherazade

The name "Sybil" comes from Greek and means "prophet/prophetess". Do you think this is significant?
I can find myself in LMK's explination. It made me think that maybe the same can be figured out for Seymour and Muriel. No luck though: Seymour refers to the place Saint-Maur in France, and Muriel means "sparkling, shining sea". Well, maybe that fits as in her being all sparkles and quite self-absorbed? :S But I can not fit the sea to her... She gives the impression of a girl who might like the beach to get a tan, but not necessarely the sea itself.
I'm just thinking out loud here :lol: I'll brood on this some more...

On the prophet note: It is Sybil who asks him to come into the water, while Muriel just told her mother that he doesn't go there. Though he does have that float with him...

KingMob

now I read all these comments and the story starts to get bigger and more complex.

To me, the story starts to make sense - I've read it a couple of times in my lifetime, but I never understood what all the fuss was about. Just a story in which a mother and a daughter chat on the phone, a man talks to a girl about some nonsense and that's about it... With all the explaining in here I start to think about what's behind it all, underneath the surface :). So I'm really glad we're doing this :hurray:

The Wasteland reference, i hadn't noticed at all, thanks Virgil! But there is some mystery there, why do you think that phrase pops up in Seymour's head at that particular moment?
Same here :)

@Downing
Good point. Maybe just because he is a grown man?

Is there anybody else who thinks there are quite some details in this story? I mean, there isn't just a pistol, it is a Ortgies calibre 7.65 automatic. And the phone lines aren't just busy because there are a lot of advertising men - there are 57 of them.

[Virgil]

And as regards the epiphany, do you think there is really one? I mean, was Seymour already planning to commit suicide or there is that moment of Joyce-like epiphany? I like more the epiphany theory but it seems rather hard to recognise the moment or his change.

Hard to say. It does seem like he's been trying to kill himself before. But what else would be the significance of that long dialogue with Sybil? And I do like the notion of Sybil as a vehicle toward his decision.


Maybe the feet episode in the elevator is to show that final straw. Seymour kisses Sybil's foot because he thinks it's beautiful, it belongs to the childhood world, to fantasy. Maybe he thought his own feet were like that but now he realizes they are not.
Good thought! That never occured to me before.


But then, on the elevator, he thinks the woman is looking at his feet because they are not normal, they have something different, something childish, and so he realizes he doesn't belong to the grown-up world either.
The feet may be the vehicle to show the epiphany, as he realizes he doesn't belong completely to either world.
Yes, that could be. I'm not sure it's conclusive one way or the other.


Edit: One more thing. The Wasteland reference, i hadn't noticed at all, thanks Virgil! But there is some mystery there, why do you think that phrase pops up in Seymour's head at that particular moment?
That phrase, "mixing memory and desire" is in The Wasteland a reference to before life became modern, to a pre-waste land. Could it be Seymore's wish to a pre-war life or to his childhood.


In short; I was trying to suggest it was the last straw, a realization that he doesn't belong.

Perhaps my analogy was not as clear as I'd intended, but I was trying to paint him as a banana fish who swam into the hole and had eaten the one-too-many-eth banana that put him over the limit to swim out through the door.

I like your analogy. I think it fits. eating those bananas is comparable to the war trauma.


I'm not yet convinced there is anything sexual in the story, the name he begins to call his wife is "Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948" he might have called her just a tramp or Miss World Tramp of 1948, but with all that he may have experienced in the war it is the spirit; something much deeper or beyond sex that he identifies with or is looking for. And the fact that she giggles when disclosing the new name to her mother suggests she is without a clue.
You might be right. There is the sort of sexual suggestiveness between him and Sybil (though I don't think it's conscious on Seymore's part) but though there is nothing overt, I can't help but feel there is sexual suggestiveness. Notice the magazine article Muriel is reading: "Sex Is Fun-or Hell". Plus the reference to Muriel's puberty in the second paragraph. Plus this story was written at a time when Freud was very big and any allusion to mental illness suggested a sexual problem. Plus the allusion to The Wasteland - a poem where spirituality has degenerated into raw sexuality adds to the suggestion.



[color=blue]
@MaineTim
@Virgil

I never got the impression that he was willingly trying to shock people. Looking at it in this way, it means that Seymore isn't trying to fit in. He is actually actively trying NOT to fit... An interesting thought, but I'm not sure what to do with it :blush: :lol:
He isn't happy when he has shocked the woman in the elevator though. He doesn't seem the least bit satisfied with himself - if it is his goal to shock, wouldn't he feel some kind of satisfaction at that point?

Read the Muriel section again, and notice how deliberate and methodical and placid she is. She is unpertubable. The gunshot to his temple is probably the only thing that can shock her. I don't know if he's happy or not. I don't think so because he hasn't achieved what he's really after by shocking people. More on that at the end of this post, below.


Actually, I was trying not to :) But it probably is... I just hate it that my mind goes there :crazy: I liked your explination why it isn't. I have to say though: kissing somebodies feet while you're just friends or maybe even just acquaintances is a bit unsettling.
I guess you don't have a foot fetish. :p :lol: (I'm joking.)


I think LMK is right to point out "Spiritual", but it also makes me wonder whether that isn't exactly what you mean. :crazy: I'll try to explain :) Him focussing on the Spiritual Tramp, proofs your point that there is an resentment toward adult sexual behaviour - which might not have been there when it was "just" Tramp. I know it can be a demeaning word, but can it be cute as a nick-name? Or maybe not cute... but a man who's comfortable with his wife's sexual avances might call her "Miss Tramp 1948" in the bedroom?
Now he calls her Miss Spiritual Tramp, this might mean she has a lot of different (spiritual) ideas. She's game for all sorts of thoughts. Or it might mean that she tramples them all, being overly materialistic. I really don't know what to think of it. :crazy: does it show? :lol:
Good point. I hadn't thought about spiritual tramp. But what is a spiritual tramp? I think Seymore is using the phrase ironically. There is nothing spiritual about Muriel at all. Everything we see about her is grounded in the material.

Let me just say another thing about the spiritual. This is out of the context of this particular story. But if you all get a chance, read the nine stories in the collection. The collection is called Nine Stories. While there is only the suggestion of the importance of the spiritual to Salinger in this story, you'll find much more overt references to modern world's lack of spirituality in some of the other stories. But even in this story, we have the "spiritual tramp" reference, the allusion to The Wasteland, the allusion to the great German poet of the century, who though not mentioned I believe is Rilke, who is a spiritual poet.

Which brings me into why he is trying to shock people. He is trying to shock people to bring them out of the material world, out of the wasteland, to see the fantastic, the spiritual, the beyond reality.

[LMK]

Good point. I hadn't thought about spiritual tramp. But what is a spiritual tramp? I think Seymore is using the phrase ironically. There is nothing spiritual about Muriel at all. Everything we see about her is grounded in the material.

My idea was that I looked at the word tramp in the context of the times it would have been like a hobo, if you will, someone without 'things'; no home, no nothing. So him calling her a Spiritual Tramp is to say that she has no spirit, she is no deeper than her lipstick tube. I don't think it was ironic I think he was belting her in the face, but she just didn't get it. In fact she may even have thought he was praising another meaning of the word tramp and felt a bit naughty but pleased with it. Stil to him she was Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948 and Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948.

If Muriel has any thoughts about sex it too would be as a thing, just as her husband was a 'thing' she didn't take it seriously...life was a game for her to be played on her terms. Look at how casually she went about answering the phone she had to wait to be put through.

[mal4mac]

The banana is, amongst other things, a phallic symbol, especially when the holes get involved! Why 78? Perhaps that's the number of materialistic tramps he's been "involved with", and, sadly, he recognises he's ended up married to one, largely due to banana fever. His innocent encounter with the child reminds him of an innocent, better world, now lost to him. He's obviously an attractive guy, the tramp in the lift even admires his feet. He cannot get away from tramps even in the lift!. He walks into his bedroom. Another tramp, and this one has him trapped. So he kills himself.

MaineTim - I liked your interpretation. No doubt there are many others. Salinger is a genius.

[Sapphire]

But what else would be the significance of that long dialogue with Sybil?
Without it, we would only have the conversation of Muriel with her mother: the significance of the dialogue might just be to let us meet Seymour :) And to let him tell the wonderful story of the bananafish ;)

Could it be Seymore's wish to a pre-war life or to his childhood.

I like that idea - I can totally imagine he'd like to go back to that when he has lived through WWII...

Plus the reference to Muriel's puberty in the second paragraph.
I thought that was there to make it very clear that she is an attractive girl: a girl for whom the guys have been in line since... well, since she hit puberty :D And I thought the magazine was just one of those glossies :crazy: But it makes more sense to see it in a bigger context - why should the writer add details like that when there's no meaning behind them? Then again, I don't think the type of gun or the exact amount of sales man in the hotel is very relevant ;)

I guess you don't have a foot fetish.
That obvious, ey? :p

Let me just say another thing about the spiritual. This is out of the context of this particular story. But if you all get a chance, read the nine stories in the collection. The collection is called Nine Stories. While there is only the suggestion of the importance of the spiritual to Salinger in this story, you'll find much more overt references to modern world's lack of spirituality in some of the other stories. But even in this story, we have the "spiritual tramp" reference, the allusion to The Wasteland, the allusion to the great German poet of the century, who though not mentioned I believe is Rilke, who is a spiritual poet.
Which brings me into why he is trying to shock people. He is trying to shock people to bring them out of the material world, out of the wasteland, to see the fantastic, the spiritual, the beyond reality.
I buy this :D Thanks for the insight!

My idea was that I looked at the word tramp in the context of the times it would have been like a hobo, if you will, someone without 'things'
I hadn't thought of that meaning of tramp. I think it fits very well into this story :)

Strange though, before we started to talk about all of this I never thought Muriel to be that materialistic :blush: I just thought she was standing by her man in the conversation with her mother; trying to avoid a fuzz so her parents would stop worrying.
After all, she did stick with Seymour while he was away. Even if she isn't interested in sex, other guys could have given her presents. Or maybe that is my line of reasoning again: if you stick with your man you don't take presents from other guys. Maybe she did do that... kept some admirers strolling along for materialistic purposes...
I guess we'll never know.

The banana is, amongst other things, a phallic symbol, especially when the holes get involved!
I already wondered when somebody would bring this up. I had been thinking about it, but I couldn't think of an explination...

[applepie]

Let me start by saying what an odd, but interesting short story. I've never read this before, but I'll thank Virgil for directing me this way.

There was a level of discomfort in the scene with Sybil. I don't know a better way to describe it. It was suggested that Seymore was attempting to shock the people around him, and perhaps this is the authors way of doing the same to us.

Perhaps my mind is in the gutter, but the idea of a "banana fish" that he was talking of to the little girl... well it put some nasty images in my head. At first I thought he was going to be nude beneath his robe, and then I was picturing something far more nefarious was going to happen in the water than what really occurred. I think it was deliberate in that we are given just the hint, a whiff if you will, of the idea of pedophilia without actually having any occur. It says something to the state of Seymore's mind.



Good point. I hadn't thought about spiritual tramp. But what is a spiritual tramp? I think Seymore is using the phrase ironically. There is nothing spiritual about Muriel at all. Everything we see about her is grounded in the material.

I've pondered over this idea of a spiritual tramp and I think it speaks to the relationship between Seymore and his wife. The mother made a comment about how other wives behaved, and perhaps while she may not have had an actual affair, he may feel that she thought of others more than him. In an essence she cheated with her mind and heart rather than her body. I think he also views her as a bit of a child rather than as a woman. This quote left me thinking of the way in which he would see his wife.

He glanced at the girl lying asleep on one of the twin beds...Then he went over and sat down on the unoccupied twin bed, looked at the girl, aimed the pistol, and fired a bullet through his right temple.
The idea that she is referred to as a girl when he shoots himself is interesting. Perhaps his interest in children was an attempt to understand and connect with his wife whom he is now more adult than after a return from war. A man married to a child rather than a man who has reverted to childhood.

[Rores28]

I also felt a sense of pedophiliac foreboding at the first mention of the bananafish, and I agree that it was supposed to suggest at least some sort of latent desire for children even if the main character had never directly acted on the urges, or maybe completely understood them.

Not just banana, but fish, are both juvenile associations with secondary male and female sex organs respectively and I don't think this is an accident nor is their juxtaposition. I think a case can be made for both Seymour and his wife in someway being a bananfish but I think the point is that ultimately they both are, but for different reasons. Her because of her spiritualess consumerism and him because of the memories or scenes of terror he acquired in the war.

I read the story as a marriage that was strained out of complete apathy or disconnectedness between the two. For instance, despite it apparently being quite obvious to everyone that Seymour is mentally unstable his wife pretty much brushes these concerns aside and says something to the effect that of "just wanting to enjoy her vacation." You also get the impression that despite recently arriving home from the war they aren't exactly spending a great deal of time together on this vacation.

She only loves things and he is now so jaded and calloused that it is impossible to love someone like that or even continue to at least pretend to. So it is a perfect day for a bananafish for two reasons, both somewhat sardonic. He because he is "escaping" the hole in the only way left to him, and she because she will be able to gorge herself on even more banana's, both sexually and financially. She will of course get all of their collective possessions along with a life insurance policy which he undoubtedly has, having been a soldier, and only have to go through a brief period of "grieving" before taking another man and his concomitant material offerings.

[Virgil]

My idea was that I looked at the word tramp in the context of the times it would have been like a hobo, if you will, someone without 'things'; no home, no nothing. So him calling her a Spiritual Tramp is to say that she has no spirit, she is no deeper than her lipstick tube. I don't think it was ironic I think he was belting her in the face, but she just didn't get it. In fact she may even have thought he was praising another meaning of the word tramp and felt a bit naughty but pleased with it. Stil to him she was Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948 and Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948.

I hadn't thought of that. Great point. Actually I think both fits, but I like your reading better.


The banana is, amongst other things, a phallic symbol, especially when the holes get involved! Why 78? Perhaps that's the number of materialistic tramps he's been "involved with", and, sadly, he recognises he's ended up married to one, largely due to banana fever. His innocent encounter with the child reminds him of an innocent, better world, now lost to him. He's obviously an attractive guy, the tramp in the lift even admires his feet. He cannot get away from tramps even in the lift!. He walks into his bedroom. Another tramp, and this one has him trapped. So he kills himself.

You know, in all the years I've been reading this story, I never realized that obvious phallic symbol. How could it not have dawn on me? :lol: However I have to disagree about the woman in the elevator. There is nothing to suggest that she's a tramp or even looking at his feet. Her reaction is complete surprise and is credible to me.


Let me start by saying what an odd, but interesting short story. I've never read this before, but I'll thank Virgil for directing me this way.

You're welcome. :)


Perhaps my mind is in the gutter, but the idea of a "banana fish" that he was talking of to the little girl... well it put some nasty images in my head. At first I thought he was going to be nude beneath his robe, and then I was picturing something far more nefarious was going to happen in the water than what really occurred. I think it was deliberate in that we are given just the hint, a whiff if you will, of the idea of pedophilia without actually having any occur. It says something to the state of Seymore's mind.
I read it as completely innocent. Some here don't. It's possible that there is a "latent" pedophilia as Rores says, but no where in Muriel's descriptions of Seymore's insanity is any suggestion of sexual deviance. Everything suggests a desire to shock the people around him. Pedophilia would not go along with Salinger's themes of desire for childhood innocence.


The idea that she is referred to as a girl when he shoots himself is interesting.
I agree, that is interesting.


I also felt a sense of pedophiliac foreboding at the first mention of the bananafish, and I agree that it was supposed to suggest at least some sort of latent desire for children even if the main character had never directly acted on the urges, or maybe completely understood them.
I'm not sure I can agree about a latent desire for children. I can't find any direct suggestion that he has any. Salinger heros are not usually the perverts; they are usually ones who wish for a childhood innocence.


Not just banana, but fish, are both juvenile associations with secondary male and female sex organs respectively and I don't think this is an accident nor is their juxtaposition. I think a case can be made for both Seymour and his wife in someway being a bananfish but I think the point is that ultimately they both are, but for different reasons. Her because of her spiritualess consumerism and him because of the memories or scenes of terror he acquired in the war.
Yes, actually, the consumerism of Muriel is suggestive of the banana fish consumption. Good point.


She only loves things and he is now so jaded and calloused that it is impossible to love someone like that or even continue to at least pretend to. So it is a perfect day for a bananafish for two reasons, both somewhat sardonic. He because he is "escaping" the hole in the only way left to him, and she because she will be able to gorge herself on even more banana's, both sexually and financially. She will of course get all of their collective possessions along with a life insurance policy which he undoubtedly has, having been a soldier, and only have to go through a brief period of "grieving" before taking another man and his concomitant material offerings.
Not sure if that's what the "perfect" was referring to, but I do like the "escape" and Muriel's consumption points.

[Scheherazade]

There is so much to reply to here but I don't want to quote each post so I will post my thoughts on the issues that have been discussed.

Sybil's name> I think, yes, it is symbolic: She makes Seymore realise certain things. She gives him the "message" that there is an innocence that is lost to him and grown-ups.

Foot-kissing> I have been thinking about this a lot. On one hand, it does seem a creepy thing to be done by a stranger but on the other hand, toddler feet are absolutely delightful! Who doesn't love kissing a baby's or toddler's foot.

However, I wonder if the timing of the kiss is important as well. Seymore does this right after Sybil claims to have seen a bananafish. This, to me, shows how innocent, how impressionable she is, and, I believe, that is what Seymore realises once again as well. His tale about bananafish, no doubt a sarcastic one, is taken at its face value by Sybil, who readily takes his word for it all and claims to see one herself as well. Maybe to please him or maybe her imagination runs away with it. If Seymore told about bananafish to an adult (to his wife?), he would get raised eyebrows or some scoffing maybe along with "Really, Seymore..."

After this final realisation, Seymore kisses Sybil's foot. Going back to the idea of Sybil being a messenger, isn't there some tradition of kissing the feet of religious figures?

Glass> I find this name very interesting. To me, it signifies fragility. So, Seymore, despite being able to see things clearly, is not strong enough to deal with it all and has to expire.

[Sapphire]

Going back to the idea of Sybil being a messenger, isn't there some tradition of kissing the feet of religious figures?
Of course :brickwall. That is a great idea!

[applepie]

I read it as completely innocent. Some here don't. It's possible that there is a "latent" pedophilia as Rores says, but no where in Muriel's descriptions of Seymore's insanity is any suggestion of sexual deviance. Everything suggests a desire to shock the people around him. Pedophilia would not go along with Salinger's themes of desire for childhood innocence.
To me it was just a whiff of it. Part of it stems from the insinuation of the parents that Seymore would do something "funny" or odd in some way. This sort of colored the way that I viewed Seymore from the beginning. I'm going to read it again after reading the discussion here to see if it has changed the way that I view things.

[Rores28]

Foot-kissing> I have been thinking about this a lot. On one hand, it does seem a creepy thing to be done by a stranger but on the other hand, toddler feet are absolutely delightful! Who doesn't love kissing a baby's or toddler's foot.



^ Pedophile.... Pedopedophile even

[Scheherazade]

^ Pedophile.... Pedopedophile evenCare to explain what you mean in more detail, please?


To me it was just a whiff of it. Part of it stems from the insinuation of the parents that Seymore would do something "funny" or odd in some way. This sort of colored the way that I viewed Seymore from the beginning. I'm going to read it again after reading the discussion here to see if it has changed the way that I view things.I hear what you are saying, Meg.

This story was written over 60 years ago and our reaction to a friendship between an adult and child shows how much our society has... deteriorated?

With all the horror stories we get to hear on daily basis, we are, I think, finding it hard to believe and accept that this relationship could be very innocent. It is ironic that it also goes to show that while interpreting the story, our lost innocence -in moral terms as the members of 21st century society- interferes with our interpretation of the story.

I cannot help wondering if the readers of 60 years ago felt the same uneasiness as we feel while reading this part of the story and, even though on first reading I could not help raising an eyebrow upon reading this particular scene, I do not believe that Salinger meant Seymore to come across as someone who is taking advantage of a little girl.

[aliengirl]

I read this story for the first time today. I have gone through all the discussions and they really helped me to see the story from so many different angles. I see I'm quite late. But a few more ideas came into my head. Salinger has obviously used the Bananafish as a metaphor (which LMK has explained so brilliantly) but is feet also a kind of symbol/ metaphor? Why not use Face to show innocence of childhood?
I was also pondering over Seymore's cause of suicide? He just does not commit suicide in haste. He has earlier shown suicidal tendencies. Muriel's mother gives a hint of this,

"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 from Bermuda--everything."

And also when she says,
"Well. In the first place, he said it was a perfect crime the Army released him from the hospital--my word of honor. He very definitely told your father there's a chance--a very great chance, he said--that Seymour may completely lose control of himself. My word of honor."

I think perhaps it is the lack of love and trust upon his wife's part which drives him to this extreme step. Or does he want to escape from his own failure to adjust to the adult world? I could not decide what it is.
Another interesting point is that Muriel's mother warns her that Seymore may harm her but the poor guy harms no one except himself. During his whole conversation with Sybil, I felt that now he would do something odd to the girl. (Actually I was thinking that he would drown her.) Even when he took out the automatic it seemed as if he would shoot his wife. Perhaps the first conversation between Muriel and her mother presented Seymore in a very negative shade. I feel I should read the story again.




Foot-kissing> I have been thinking about this a lot. On one hand, it does seem a creepy thing to be done by a stranger but on the other hand, toddler feet are absolutely delightful! Who doesn't love kissing a baby's or toddler's foot.

However, I wonder if the timing of the kiss is important as well. Seymore does this right after Sybil claims to have seen a bananafish. This, to me, shows how innocent, how impressionable she is, and, I believe, that is what Seymore realises once again as well. His tale about bananafish, no doubt a sarcastic one, is taken at its face value by Sybil, who readily takes his word for it all and claims to see one herself as well. Maybe to please him or maybe her imagination runs away with it. If Seymore told about bananafish to an adult (to his wife?), he would get raised eyebrows or some scoffing maybe along with "Really, Seymore..."

After this final realisation, Seymore kisses Sybil's foot. Going back to the idea of Sybil being a messenger, isn't there some tradition of kissing the feet of religious figures?




Agreed. I quite exclaimed aloud to myself, "Who doesn't love kissing a baby's or toddler's foot!" The idea of Sybil as a messenger is really great.

[applepie]

I hear what you are saying, Meg.

This story was written over 60 years ago and our reaction to a friendship between an adult and child shows how much our society has... deteriorated?

With all the horror stories we get to hear on daily basis, we are, I think, finding it hard to believe and accept that this relationship could be very innocent. It is ironic that it also goes to show that while interpreting the story, our lost innocence -in moral terms as the members of 21st century society- interferes with our interpretation of the story.

I cannot help wondering if the readers of 60 years ago felt the same uneasiness as we feel while reading this part of the story and, even though on first reading I could not help raising an eyebrow upon reading this particular scene, I do not believe that Salinger meant Seymore to come across as someone who is taking advantage of a little girl.

You've hit it on the nail there Scher :) I don't believe it was intentionally written with any sort of an insinuation of pedophilia. After reading your post about kissing feet, it sort of made me think. How many times have I done this to my own children playing around? It's a bit strange when I think of it that I would have such a reaction to something so silly and innocent. It does say a lot about the level of jadedness in the 21st century that many of us view it in a different light. I'm curious to see if I can find any other interpretations of this story, older ones, that would not be tainted by the current societies we live in.

[LMK]

I hear what you are saying, Meg.

This story was written over 60 years ago and our reaction to a friendship between an adult and child shows how much our society has... deteriorated?

With all the horror stories we get to hear on daily basis, we are, I think, finding it hard to believe and accept that this relationship could be very innocent. It is ironic that it also goes to show that while interpreting the story, our lost innocence -in moral terms as the members of 21st century society- interferes with our interpretation of the story.

I cannot help wondering if the readers of 60 years ago felt the same uneasiness as we feel while reading this part of the story and, even though on first reading I could not help raising an eyebrow upon reading this particular scene, I do not believe that Salinger meant Seymore to come across as someone who is taking advantage of a little girl.

Exactly, my opinion, as I said I have yet to find sexuality to be part of this story. It was also why I associated the word tramp, in Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948 with a definition that would have been most understood then...hobo... or even the quintessential tramp (Charlie Chaplin).

What a great discussion, I'm happy this story was chosen!

[Rores28]

Care to explain what you mean in more detail, please?



I was trying to be clever but misspelled. Podapedophile was what I was going for, or Pedopodaphile. I'm trying to portmanteau it into something that means likes young peoples' feet




Glass> I find this name very interesting. To me, it signifies fragility. So, Seymore, despite being able to see things clearly, is not strong enough to deal with it all and has to expire.
^
This is a good find.

Also my new reckoning of this story is that it is the reader who is in fact the bananafish, entering the black hole of a story and gorging themselves on endless speculative hypotheses to the point that they no longer know what the hell to think and are trapped forever in its frustrating cave of ambiguity.

A Perfect Day for a Bananafish ~4,009 words
This discussion so far ~ 10,770 words

[Virgil]

Foot-kissing> I have been thinking about this a lot. On one hand, it does seem a creepy thing to be done by a stranger but on the other hand, toddler feet are absolutely delightful! Who doesn't love kissing a baby's or toddler's foot.

However, I wonder if the timing of the kiss is important as well. Seymore does this right after Sybil claims to have seen a bananafish. This, to me, shows how innocent, how impressionable she is, and, I believe, that is what Seymore realises once again as well. His tale about bananafish, no doubt a sarcastic one, is taken at its face value by Sybil, who readily takes his word for it all and claims to see one herself as well. Maybe to please him or maybe her imagination runs away with it. If Seymore told about bananafish to an adult (to his wife?), he would get raised eyebrows or some scoffing maybe along with "Really, Seymore..."

I am squarely in the camp that says the relationship between Seymore and Sybil (and even the other girl at the piano) is completely innocent. I don't think the story makes sense if there was any touch of pedophilia. Yes, the double entrendre would suggest the difference in how an adult sees the story and how a child sees the story.



After this final realisation, Seymore kisses Sybil's foot. Going back to the idea of Sybil being a messenger, isn't there some tradition of kissing the feet of religious figures?
Well, there is the washing of feet in Chrisitianity and I guess people kiss the feet of statues and icons. So I looked it up and found this:


Religious Kisses
Kissing in Christianity
Kissing out of honor, respect, and even forgiveness is a tradition that is incorporated into many Christian denominations. The kissing of icons, painted images of Jesus and the Saints, is the primary form of veneration in Orthodox Christianity. Veneration of the holy images is an ancient custom dating back to the fifth and sixth centuries, and is still practiced today in Orthodox Christian worship. Through veneration, Orthodox Christians show reverence for the people and the events depicted in the icon. Another kissing tradition in Christianity is known as the “kiss of peace.” The root of this tradition comes from Apostle Paul’s instruction for Christ’s followers to “greet each other with a holy kiss” (Romans 16:16) however today during the “kiss of peace” members of a church will exchange a handshake, hug, or kiss on the cheek as a sign of mutual forgiveness.[22] The most relevant topic regarding religious kisses is the kissing of feet. Feet washing, which precedes the kissing, is a sign of humbleness [23] and is looked upon as an "act of lowly service, of loving service, and of self-giving service." [24] This caring act "reflects the grace of God’s never-ending, unconditional love and, as such, its observance is surely a means of grace with exceedingly strong sacramental characteristics." [25] Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and then commanded them to "wash one another's feet" (John 13:12) with love and humbleness as a service through which one can express "the love of God and the saving, cleansing grace of our savior Jesus Christ to each other."[26] After cleansing, a kiss would be bestowed on the feet as an act of servitude. By performing the actions of the lowliest servant, Jesus demonstrated what kind of servant-based leadership was expected from his disciples.
I don't know if Salinger was referring to this, but your thought does fit with the story Scher. I would have to say it's possible he intended to suggest this. And this would fit well with the spirituality motif that seems to recur throughout the story.

[Scheherazade]

A Perfect Day for a Bananafish ~4,009 words
This discussion so far ~ 10,770 words
Counting the words in a discussion thread: Priceless!

For everything else:
http://www.vancouverite.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Mastercard.jpg


LMK> I agree with your interpretation of "Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948"; I do believe it emphasises the fact that Muriel was lacking in terms of spiritual depth.

Meg> Look at Sybil's mother. Can you imagine a mother today leaving your three years old daughter alone on a beach to have a drink at the hotel's bar?

Sad, isn't it?


So, why is it a perfect day for bananafish?

[Virgil]

Oops, I forgot to add a link to that kissing quote from wikipedia just above Scher. It's here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kissing_traditions

[Sapphire]

Can you imagine a mother today leaving your three years old daughter alone on a beach to have a drink at the hotel's bar?
Maybe, just maybe the bar has a look out on the water? I mean, leaving a 3 years old alone near the water is dangerous in any century, isn't it? There should at least be a life guard or something nearby ... Or maybe not, for Sybil does wander outside the zone reserved for guests of the hotel...
So maybe the mother even knows Mr. Glass is there, and regards him as a good baby sit. He knew the girl, so probably also the parents. He was there when Sybil comes, waiting - or at least not doing anything (but think). Sybil is talking about "glass" all the time while she's with her mother

"See more glass," said Sybil Carpenter, who was staying at the hotel with her mother. "Did you see more glass?"
then, when she sees Mr. Glass

"Are you going in the water, see more glass?" she said.
This could be because her mother has told her to stay close to Mr. Glass if she wants to go into the water. Three year olds do still have the tendency to brabble a bit and repeat words in a different context, don't they?

[bouquin]

If Sybil Carpenter could not save Seymour then who else possibly could?

[Scheherazade]

Sapphire> I was not being critical of Sybil's mother for leaving her daughter but just giving that as an example of relaxed attitude of parents/people in those days as very few parents today would be willing to leave their toddlers alone or in the care of people they have just met while on holiday.

Sybil Carpenter> Aaaanndd another reference: Jesus' father Joseph was a carpenter, was he not? :p

[Sapphire]

I was not being critical of Sybil's mother for leaving her daughter but just giving that as an example of relaxed attitude of parents/people in those days as very few parents today would be willing to leave their toddlers alone or in the care of people they have just met while on holiday.
I got that :D I was just trying to figure out why she did what she did - not implicating that you were being critical :nonod: I'm sorry if it seemed that way.

Jesus' father Joseph was a carpenter, was he not?
So the child becomes the father? :crazy: (Yes, I get the tongue-smiley, I'm just wondering whether you're on to something :) )

[bouquin]

Agreed.

I had no idea where he would be going with this story. The talk on the phone in the beginning made me think the "him" they were talking about would never appear in the story itself, untill the mother started to say his real name (Seymour). I was especially intrigued by

It really makes me wonder what that could have been - we'll never find out. As a lot of things in this story. But that's why it is a story and not a whole novel.

I really enjoyed the talk with the little girl, though there was a slight feeling of "uneasy" through it all which I can not quite place. Maybe it was the kissing of the feet which caught me of guard.

I think in the end the intention might have been to make the reader think the woman is in danger - as her mother warned her about the guy.

He made me wonder there for a second...




I think I see what you mean regarding the phone conversation. Muriel being described as "girl" and her being alone in her hotel room for several hours gave me the first immediate impression that she was traveling on her own.

For me the scene between Sybil and Seymour serves to emphasize the pathos and irony of the latter's situation. Seymour seems still capable of being gay and witty and entertaining, and fascinate and hold a person's attention. And yet he commits the irremediable act. His kissing Sybil's feet was his way of saying goodbye to her, I think.




________________________
Currently reading: The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Mohsin Hamid)

[Sapphire]

Seymour seems still capable of being gay and witty and entertaining, and fascinate and hold a person's attention.
I think this is arguable. In the conversation with Sybil he is ... well, in my eyes he is serious :nod: I read it with a dry kind of humour: to take everything literaly and to play along with what the child says - and add some of his own (the bananafish story).
His character certainly fascinates me, but I do not know whether his attitude was appreciated by many people. While Sybil took it all literall, Muriel and her folks just did not understand what he was on about. He is something of a tragic, misunderstood figure.

[bouquin]

.


"Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948." There is an resentment toward adult sexual behavior in this story. Maybe it's even a repulsion towards it. Notice in his dialogue with Sybil;




:) :)



Seymour qualifies Muriel as "Miss Spiritual Tramp" and not sexual tramp. So I would interpret this in the spiritual/moral line rather than the sexual. I think Seymour calls Muriel a spiritual tramp because he considers her to have no ardent or steadfast moral/spiritual convictions and principles. Could it be that she seems to him to be totally shallow and flimsy in character ...and we do get a suggestion of this, don't we, when we see Muriel going about her business in her hotel room while waiting for her phone call to get through; also her preoccupation with the psychiatrist's wife's green dress and figure, and clothes in general, and with the other hotel guests. And in her conversation with her mother, she doesn't come across as being anxious about Seymour at all when as it turns out, there is absolute reason to be. (The mother is apparently more worried but somehow my impression is that their discussion on Seymour lacks depth and real feeling - maybe because it is interspersed by talk of sunburns and sequins). Then there's also that thing about the book of poems that Seymour sent her; heedlessly it seems, she doesn't know what she's done with it. She did not seem to care that Seymour had pointed out that it was written by a great poet; and it seemed preposterous to her when Seymour suggested that she could have gotten a translated edition.

[Virgil]

Seymour qualifies Muriel as "Miss Spiritual Tramp" and not sexual tramp. So I would interpret this in the spiritual/moral line rather than the sexual. I think Seymour calls Muriel a spiritual tramp because he considers her to have no ardent or steadfast moral/spiritual convictions and principles.
This is what I said to a similar response back in post #19:

You might be right. There is the sort of sexual suggestiveness between him and Sybil (though I don't think it's conscious on Seymore's part) but though there is nothing overt, I can't help but feel there is sexual suggestiveness. Notice the magazine article Muriel is reading: "Sex Is Fun-or Hell". Plus the reference to Muriel's puberty in the second paragraph. Plus this story was written at a time when Freud was very big and any allusion to mental illness suggested a sexual problem. Plus the allusion to The Wasteland - a poem where spirituality has degenerated into raw sexuality adds to the suggestion.
Add alos not the phallic banana and the banana fish going into the hole imagery and I don't think there is any question there are sexual overtones in the story, and i do think when you examine the meaning of the banana fish dying in the hole I would say there is an anxiety toward adult seuality.


Could it be that she seems to him to be totally shallow and flimsy in character ...and we do get a suggestion of this, don't we, when we see Muriel going about her business in her hotel room while waiting for her phone call to get through; also her preoccupation with the psychiatrist's wife's green dress and figure, and clothes in general, and with the other hotel guests.


And in her conversation with her mother, she doesn't come across as being anxious about Seymour at all when as it turns out, there is absolute reason to be. (The mother is apparently more worried but somehow my impression is that their discussion on Seymour lacks depth and real feeling - maybe because it is interspersed by talk of sunburns and sequins).
Yes. What I get from Muriel's movements before the phone call is how deliberate and inperturbable she is. You're right: her mother is worried and Muriel is placid.

[qimissung]

And concerning "The Wasteland" I found this:

The epigraph to T. S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land" (1922) is a quote from the Satyricon where Trimalchio states, "For I myself once saw with my own eyes the Sibyl hanging in a cage, and when the boys asked her, 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she answered 'I want to die.'".[5]

Also concerning the child Sybil, while I agree that there is something buried in this story about sexuality, I, too, felt uneasy at Seymore's conversation with the little girl, but it had nothing to do with sex. I thought he was going to kill her.

I did wonder if something would happen with Muriel. She was so very much in denial, and I think that was a suspenseful element that Salinger may have deliberately incorporated. I think he wanted us to wonder what was going to happen. We know from the outset that Seymour is unstable, possible a loose cannon. Will he, we wonder, take anyone else out with him?

As to the bananfish, I think a metaphor can incorporate two ideas, and I think that could be the case here. There is a specific, overt allusion to a lack of spiritual depth in Muriel, and an implied idea that the small girl Sybil has what Muriel lacks.

Hence the kiss. It is the kiss of death. He is saying goodbye to the good things the world has. He can no longer find them in his life or in himself.

I found this on our own website:


"Anchises replied by explaining the plan of
creation. The Creator, he told him, originally made the material
of which souls are composed, of the four elements, fire, air,
earth, and water, all which, when united, took the form of the
most excellent part, fire, and became FLAME. This material was
scattered like seed among the heavenly bodies, the sun, moon, and
stars. Of this seed the inferior gods created man and all other
animals, mingling it with various proportions of earth, by which
its purity was alloyed and reduced. Thus the more earth
predominates in the composition, the less pure is the individual;
and we see men and women with their full-grown bodies have not
the purity of childhood. So in proportion to the time which the
union of body and soul has lasted, is the impurity contracted by
the spiritual part. This impurity must be purged away after
death, which is done by ventilating the souls in the current of
winds, or merging them in water, or burning out their impurities
by fire. Some few, of whom Anchises intimates that he is one,
are admitted at once to Elysium, there to remain. But the rest,
after the impurities of earth are purged away, are sent back to
life endowed with new bodies, having had the remembrance of their
former lives effectually washed away by the waters of Lethe.
Some, however, there still are, so thoroughly corrupted, that
they are not fit to be entrusted with human bodies, and these are
made into brute animals, lions, tigers, cats, dogs, monkeys, etc."

I found it here:


http://www.online-literature.com/bulfinch/mythology_fable/25/


In this story Sybil is leading Aeneas into the underworld.

[LMK]

Also concerning the child Sybil, while I agree that there is something buried in this story about sexuality, I, too, felt uneasy at Seymore's conversation with the little girl, but it had nothing to do with sex. I thought he was going to kill her.

I thought the same thing as he was pulling her out into the sea.

Until she was able to get off and run back towards the hotel, I kept thinking...any minute now...

[Sapphire]

That is very interesting, GiMissung. :nod:

And yes LMK, same here - and again at the closing line (but in that case the other girl, the older girl, the wive).

[bouquin]

Hello everyone! I read this again now and I keep wondering why do you all say that he didn't fit in the children's universe? To me, the discussion with Sybil is just ok, except the fact that she is disturbed by him kissing her feet. Ideas anyone? It would help me a great deal.



I agree with you. What a brilliant dialogue between Sybil and Seymour, what a splendid conversation between adult and child! And when Sybil is so cute and audacious as to say that she has spotted a bananafish (with six bananas in its mouth, no less!) what could be more natural a thing for a grown-up to do than give that child a kiss! Sybil, however, is a plucky, proud, impudent little tyke so it's almost like second nature to her to react in a seemingly negative way. But you know what? I don't think she was at all displeased. We have to bear in mind that just moments earlier she had to lay down her cards when she was compelled to bring up the thorny topic of Sharon Lipschutz; and yet, she has also to maintain her dignity, so it might not be too bad an idea to play the ice queen every now and then! But notice that when Seymour asks her if she's had enough of their frolic in the water, she exclaims, "No!"

Anybody care to compare the conversation between Muriel and her mom against that between Sybil and Seymour?

[Virgil]

Also concerning the child Sybil, while I agree that there is something buried in this story about sexuality, I, too, felt uneasy at Seymore's conversation with the little girl, but it had nothing to do with sex. I thought he was going to kill her.

Interesting that you and others felt this way toward Sybil. I never for a moment felt he was going to hurt the girl in any way. But I can understand the anxiety in the reader based on Muriel's conversation with her mother.


I did wonder if something would happen with Muriel. She was so very much in denial, and I think that was a suspenseful element that Salinger may have deliberately incorporated. I think he wanted us to wonder what was going to happen. We know from the outset that Seymour is unstable, possible a loose cannon. Will he, we wonder, take anyone else out with him?
Yes, I agree. And to be honest, I have always felt this ending to be wrong. I did want to talk about it at some point, but perhaps we can wait a bit longer.


As to the bananfish, I think a metaphor can incorporate two ideas, and I think that could be the case here. There is a specific, overt allusion to a lack of spiritual depth in Muriel, and an implied idea that the small girl Sybil has what Muriel lacks.

Hence the kiss. It is the kiss of death. He is saying goodbye to the good things the world has. He can no longer find them in his life or in himself.
I never thought about the kiss as a goodbye, but yes it fits.


I found this on our own website:


"Anchises replied by explaining the plan of
creation. The Creator, he told him, originally made the material
of which souls are composed, of the four elements, fire, air,
earth, and water, all which, when united, took the form of the
most excellent part, fire, and became FLAME. This material was
scattered like seed among the heavenly bodies, the sun, moon, and
stars. Of this seed the inferior gods created man and all other
animals, mingling it with various proportions of earth, by which
its purity was alloyed and reduced. Thus the more earth
predominates in the composition, the less pure is the individual;
and we see men and women with their full-grown bodies have not
the purity of childhood. So in proportion to the time which the
union of body and soul has lasted, is the impurity contracted by
the spiritual part. This impurity must be purged away after
death, which is done by ventilating the souls in the current of
winds, or merging them in water, or burning out their impurities
by fire. Some few, of whom Anchises intimates that he is one,
are admitted at once to Elysium, there to remain. But the rest,
after the impurities of earth are purged away, are sent back to
life endowed with new bodies, having had the remembrance of their
former lives effectually washed away by the waters of Lethe.
Some, however, there still are, so thoroughly corrupted, that
they are not fit to be entrusted with human bodies, and these are
made into brute animals, lions, tigers, cats, dogs, monkeys, etc."


I found it here:


http://www.online-literature.com/bulfinch/mythology_fable/25/


In this story Sybil is leading Aeneas into the underworld.
Yes, the Cumean Sybil is the female who leads Aeneas into the underworld. I think Sybil's name in the story is intended as an echo of the prophetess.

[Sapphire]

And to be honest, I have always felt this ending to be wrong.
The first time I read it, I really liked how Sallinger put the thought of "murder" in my head, made me miss the idea of "suicide" (as I didn't quite catch that in the conversation of Muriel with her mother) and then gave that nice twist in the last sentence...
So in my eyes, it isn't wrong :no: What use would it be to Seymour, to kill Muriel? You yourself said that in shooting himself, he might finally shock his wife. And that was his purpose... so in that context, wouldn't the ending be just right?

[Virgil]

The first time I read it, I really liked how Sallinger put the thought of "murder" in my head, made me miss the idea of "suicide" (as I didn't quite catch that in the conversation of Muriel with her mother) and then gave that nice twist in the last sentence...
So in my eyes, it isn't wrong :no: What use would it be to Seymour, to kill Muriel? You yourself said that in shooting himself, he might finally shock his wife. And that was his purpose... so in that context, wouldn't the ending be just right?

No, killing Muriel would be even a worse ending. I didn't think the sudden dramatic blowing one's brain out at the end was prepared. Yes, it is prepared thematically, but emotionally it feels wrong. I'll explain more later.

[Sapphire]

Ok. I look forward to it :D

[bouquin]

I think this is arguable. In the conversation with Sybil he is ... well, in my eyes he is serious :nod: I read it with a dry kind of humour: to take everything literaly and to play along with what the child says - and add some of his own (the bananafish story).
His character certainly fascinates me, but I do not know whether his attitude was appreciated by many people. While Sybil took it all literall, Muriel and her folks just did not understand what he was on about. He is something of a tragic, misunderstood figure.




I don't think it can be argued that Seymour could hold his own in a conversation with a child, with Sybil he has certainly parleyed in a brilliant and witty fashion. and I don't think it can be argued that the child is smitten by him, is fascinated with him.

If there be any ambiguity in the story, my hunch is that it has been cleverly put there to test the reader if he is going to be swayed by Muriel's mother and her fears of what Seymour could be capable of doing... and so as he reads along it could be that he'd start to feel this undercurrent of doubt and anxiety and so he'd begin to conjecture that maybe Seymour is not only suicidal but gosh! most likely also a pedophile!

So in a way, for me, the first part of the story (the phone exchange between Muriel and her mom) is a kind of set-up or decoy in order to test if we would go down the path of doubting Seymour or even harshly judging him with regards his conduct with Sybil, which turned out to be all innocent in the end... Who knows, rough and bitter assessment by people around him could have been one factor that led Seymour to end his life.

[Sapphire]

I don't think it can be argued that Seymour could hold his own in a conversation with a child, with Sybil he has certainly parleyed in a brilliant and witty fashion. and I don't think it can be argued that the child is smitten by him, is fascinated with him.
Quite right.

I am sorry, I think I read your post wrong :blush: When I read

Seymour seems still capable of being gay and witty and entertaining, and fascinate and hold a person's attention.
I immediately connected this to an image of Seymore being gay and witty and entertaining in an adult crowd. I doubt the people he was surrounded by, would think this the case.
But you clearly stated that he held his own with the child. So, my bad :blush: I agree that he entertained Sybil and that she enjoyed his company. She for one will be sorry that he's gone ...

[bouquin]

I read this story for the first time today. I have gone through all the discussions and they really helped me to see the story from so many different angles. I see I'm quite late. But a few more ideas came into my head. Salinger has obviously used the Bananafish as a metaphor (which LMK has explained so brilliantly) but is feet also a kind of symbol/ metaphor? Why not use Face to show innocence of childhood?
I was also pondering over Seymore's cause of suicide? He just does not commit suicide in haste. He has earlier shown suicidal tendencies. Muriel's mother gives a hint of this,

"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 from Bermuda--everything."

And also when she says,
"Well. In the first place, he said it was a perfect crime the Army released him from the hospital--my word of honor. He very definitely told your father there's a chance--a very great chance, he said--that Seymour may completely lose control of himself. My word of honor."

I think perhaps it is the lack of love and trust upon his wife's part which drives him to this extreme step. Or does he want to escape from his own failure to adjust to the adult world? I could not decide what it is.
Another interesting point is that Muriel's mother warns her that Seymore may harm her but the poor guy harms no one except himself. During his whole conversation with Sybil, I felt that now he would do something odd to the girl. (Actually I was thinking that he would drown her.) Even when he took out the automatic it seemed as if he would shoot his wife. Perhaps the first conversation between Muriel and her mother presented Seymore in a very negative shade. I feel I should read the story again.




Agreed. I quite exclaimed aloud to myself, "Who doesn't love kissing a baby's or toddler's foot!" The idea of Sybil as a messenger is really great.



Seymour has in all probability been traumatized by his war experiences. Then Muriel's selfishness and flippant attitude towards his fragile situation have certainly done nothing to help him get back on the mend. She and Seymour are obviously incompatible. She doesn't care for his poetry books; she prefers Bingo nites, he'd rather play the piano.

Could the kissing of Sybil's feet be an allusion to Jesus washing his disciples' feet? He was nailed on the cross just days afterwards, I think.

What do you think was that incident regarding Granny's chair? What could Seymour have possibly done with it?

[grace86]

The thing I love and hate about short stories is that they deliberately seem to be ambiguous and open to debate - which is why at times I prefer a novel. :D But I enjoyed this one.

I didn't have the opportunity to read all of the posts yet, and I was surprised to see so many comments. I'll just throw myself out there with some thoughts.

Muriel definitely seems unafraid and unable to be shocked, while completely absorbed in herself. It was frustrating how she and her mother kept interrupting each other. Admittedly, it took me a minute to figure out the business with the trees.

It was a bit refreshing to change scenes. Maybe mother's had a different sense of security in the 40's but I thought it was pretty messed up for Sybil's mother to leave her alone in the guest part of the beach while she went and had a drink. That a three year old could be safe at the beach by herself is delusional on the mother's part.

I completely thought something wrong was gonna go on with Seymour and Sybil at the beach. It did seem like Salinger left that open - like he wanted us to feel uneasy considering the previous conversation with Muriel and her mother. But even if it was a bit weird, I think Seymour was interested in the easy innocence of the afternoon. Though it was over really fast...he took her over one wave and brought her back - and while we're left thinking something bad was going to happen, Salinger lets us know that Sybil ran off without a thought. She was carefree and careless.

Though despite Sybil's innocence I thought it was interesting that she was talking to Seymour about Sharon sitting at the piano with him. She seemed jealous when she said that next time he should push her off the bench. It seems like Sybil didn't want his attention to go anyone else right then. Though he's still focused on innocence - like when he mentions that he likes Sharon because she doesn't kick small dogs. It was a simple and childlike statement from him, and yet I think he wanted to hold on to innocence that is perceived in children.

As for the bit with the piano, Muriel said he played every night. It seems then that he would drift in and out and he'd have moments of being lucid.

I have more thoughts, but I got to go now....

[Virgil]

Could the kissing of Sybil's feet be an allusion to Jesus washing his disciples' feet? He was nailed on the cross just days afterwards, I think.

Whille I do agree that there might be a religious suggestion to the feet, I do think that's just stretching the significance too far. It's a suggestion to associate childhood innocence with a level of spirituality, but I can't find anything more than that.


What do you think was that incident regarding Granny's chair? What could Seymour have possibly done with it?
To be honest I laugh every time i read that line. My imagination just runs wild. It's a comic line and I don't think even Salinger had anything specific in mind. Ultimately i have no idea. :lol:



The thing I love and hate about short stories is that they deliberately seem to be ambiguous and open to debate - which is why at times I prefer a novel. :D But I enjoyed this one.

Short stories are great. They are not little novels. They are a different art form than the novel. Novels capture a totality of life. Short stories capture stories of our life.


I didn't have the opportunity to read all of the posts yet, and I was surprised to see so many comments. I'll just throw myself out there with some thoughts.
Glad you joined us. :D


Muriel definitely seems unafraid and unable to be shocked, while completely absorbed in herself. It was frustrating how she and her mother kept interrupting each other. Admittedly, it took me a minute to figure out the business with the trees.
I think that's the key in understanding her character and in understanding the conclusion. My imagination wonders if she is even perturbed when she wakes up to find Seymore.


It was a bit refreshing to change scenes. Maybe mother's had a different sense of security in the 40's but I thought it was pretty messed up for Sybil's mother to leave her alone in the guest part of the beach while she went and had a drink. That a three year old could be safe at the beach by herself is delusional on the mother's part.
Reading this as a young man, I never thought twice about it, but now as a imminent father I can see. Could it be that Sybil's mother is like Muriel, locked inside herself? Or is it just the mechanics of the story to get Sybil over to Seymore on the beach alone? I assume Salinger could have had the mother walk Sybil over to Seymore, so it's more than just story telling mechanics.


I completely thought something wrong was gonna go on with Seymour and Sybil at the beach. It did seem like Salinger left that open - like he wanted us to feel uneasy considering the previous conversation with Muriel and her mother. But even if it was a bit weird, I think Seymour was interested in the easy innocence of the afternoon. Though it was over really fast...he took her over one wave and brought her back - and while we're left thinking something bad was going to happen, Salinger lets us know that Sybil ran off without a thought. She was carefree and careless.
I think that's what Salinger is after - our adult sensibilities to jump to a heinous thought, while really the whole thing is wrapped in childhood innocence.


Though despite Sybil's innocence I thought it was interesting that she was talking to Seymour about Sharon sitting at the piano with him. She seemed jealous when she said that next time he should push her off the bench. It seems like Sybil didn't want his attention to go anyone else right then. Though he's still focused on innocence - like when he mentions that he likes Sharon because she doesn't kick small dogs. It was a simple and childlike statement from him, and yet I think he wanted to hold on to innocence that is perceived in children.
Yep. A future Muriel in 20 years? :lol:

[breathtest]

I just read the short story, i know i'm a bit late, but all i wanted to say was that i think Salinger can write little children very well. I've also read catcher in the rye, and Caulfield's sister in that is as cute as Sybil is in this. And i agree that maybe Salinger was trying to challenge our own assumptions by making it seem as though something horrid was going to happen with the Sybil and the young man.

[bouquin]

Also my new reckoning of this story is that it is the reader who is in fact the bananafish, entering the black hole of a story and gorging themselves on endless speculative hypotheses to the point that they no longer know what the hell to think and are trapped forever in its frustrating cave of ambiguity.





To review Seymour's description of bananafish:
their habits are very peculiar;
they lead a very tragic life;
they swim into a hole where there's a lot of bananas;
they're very ordinary looking fish when they swim in;
But once they get in they behave like pigs;
after that, they're so fat they can't get out of the hole again;
They get banana fever ... They die.

Ok, so what if Seymour here were alluding to himself and others like him who have been scarred by certain horrific experiences in life? In Seymour's case, the most we can glean is that he's come back unwell from the war; most likely he's suffering from combat stress reaction. We don't know if he also endured psychological/emotional hardships at other times in his life; but suffice to say that his temperament is rather more suited to pursuits of poetry and music and conversations with tiny tots instead of warfare.
So there he was, just your regular rather mellow kind of guy (ordinary looking when they swim in). But alas, he goes to war (into the hole) and there he is confronted with horrific experiences (a lot of bananas) that he is not able to handle (he behaves like a pig; gets fat). And what he's lived through has been so ghastly perhaps and he just couldn't get a grip so that now he is all mangled and broken inside (can't get out of the hole again). So now he is terribly ill in his soul (banana fever) and as far as he's concerned, he's doomed. So for him it's a perfect day for bananafish ... it's time to die.

I was wondering also on how come Seymour hit upon "bananafish" in particular. I think it was simply because moments earlier he and Sybil had been discussing her bathing suit which she pointed out was yellow.... so yellow could perhaps be associated with banana; and fish - well, there was the ocean right in front of them.

[applepie]

I think that's the key in understanding her character and in understanding the conclusion. My imagination wonders if she is even perturbed when she wakes up to find Seymore.

I think that this is the key in Seymore's mode and place of death. It is loud, messy, and something that Muriel would be unable to ignore, unlike the many things she has ignored. She may or may not have been upset, but it is not the kind of thing that can be overlooked.

While she has ignored so many things, and continues to live in her happy world, Seymore has been crying out for help with his behavior. He needs the unflappable love and acceptance that only children can give, and instead he has a wife who simply doesn't care, and in-laws that may or may not care, but only about how it may affect their daughter.

[bouquin]

In short; I was trying to suggest it was the last straw, a realization that he doesn't belong.

Perhaps my analogy was not as clear as I'd intended, but I was trying to paint him as a banana fish who swam into the hole and had eaten the one-too-many-eth banana that put him over the limit to swim out through the door.









I'm not yet convinced there is anything sexual in the story, the name he begins to call his wife is "Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948" he might have called her just a tramp or Miss World Tramp of 1948, but with all that he may have experienced in the war it is the spirit; something much deeper or beyond sex that he identifies with or is looking for. And the fact that she giggles when disclosing the new name to her mother suggests she is without a clue.




In the English language the word "fish" is an informal term for a person; thus, we say sometimes, He's an odd fish or He's not a bad fish.

And "bananas" also means crazy, deranged.
So, bananafish could mean a crazy or deranged person... Seymour could have been making a reference to himself.

As for Muriel giggling at being called Miss Spiritual Tramp, either she doesn't have a clue or she just couldn't care less.

[LMK]

In the English language the word "fish" is an informal term for a person; thus, we say sometimes, He's an odd fish or He's not a bad fish.

And "bananas" also means crazy, deranged.
So, bananafish could mean a crazy or deranged person... Seymour could have been making a reference to himself.

As for Muriel giggling at being called Miss Spiritual Tramp, either she doesn't have a clue or she just couldn't care less.

I think she was clueless therefore careless.

[bouquin]

Whille I do agree that there might be a religious suggestion to the feet, I do think that's just stretching the significance too far. It's a suggestion to associate childhood innocence with a level of spirituality, but I can't find anything more than that.


To be honest I laugh every time i read that line. My imagination just runs wild. It's a comic line and I don't think even Salinger had anything specific in mind. Ultimately i have no idea. :lol:











My own interpretation of Granny's chair is not comic at all, it is rather gruesome. I'm thinking maybe Seymour was making another attempt by hanging this time and he tried to kick off standing on Granny's chair...

As for the kiss planted on Sybil's feet, I actually have no real idea what significance could be attributed to it, if any. That was just a little theory of mine I posted earlier... because after all, if we readers can put meaning into Sybil's first name for example, comparing her to a prophetess, etc. then I don't see why we can't liken the kiss on her feet to the washing of the Biblical disciples' own.

[Virgil]

My own interpretation of Granny's chair is not comic at all, it is rather gruesome. I'm thinking maybe Seymour was making another attempt by hanging this time and he tried to kick off standing on Granny's chair...

Yes, it is gruesome if one really ponders it. Just the way it was expressed was in a comedic phrasing. There's comedy throughout the story.


As for the kiss planted on Sybil's feet, I actually have no real idea what significance could be attributed to it, if any. That was just a little theory of mine I posted earlier... because after all, if we readers can put meaning into Sybil's first name for example, comparing her to a prophetess, etc. then I don't see why we can't liken the kiss on her feet to the washing of the Biblical disciples' own.
Oh yes I agree. I wasn't criticizing. But sometimes I think we strectch symbols too far. I do agree there is spiritual allusion to kissing her feet. I don't think there is any supporting evidence to say it's related to Christ. But it's a possibility that was going through Salinger's mind but where he didn't add supporting events along with it. I'm not saying you're completely off base.

[bouquin]

I have just read a Hemingway short story called Soldier's Home. It's also about a young man come back from war and his difficulty in re-adjusting to his former peacetime life. It's not exactly the same as A Perfect Day for Bananafish, that's why you might find it worth your while to make comparisons, etc.

Are we going to be nominating and voting soon for September's short story? I hope we continue with this Club discussion every month!




____________________
Currently reading: ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND & THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS (Lewis Carroll)

[Virgil]

Before we move on from this story, I wanted to ask if people thought the ending was appropriate. Is it prepared or is it just a trite surprise ending?

Now I don't think it's a trite surprise ending. It is prepared thematically. We know that Seymore has attempted suicide before. We know he has tried to shock Muriel and we expect him to go further. So it doesn't come out of the blue.

However, the tone of the story is comic. There is the comic dialogue between Muriel and her mother, where they don't allow each other to complete their thoughts. There are the funny descriptions of Seymore's insanity. There is little Sybil trying to sound out Seymore's name, playing with the words. There is the cute exchange between Seymore and Sybil, the childish jealousy of Sybil for the girl by the piano, the imaginative play of the banana fish image. There is the hilarious image of Seymore walking on the beach tightly wrapped in a robe carrying a water float under his arm. And there is hilarious exchange about his feet in the elevator with that woman. All very light and comic. But then he methodically takes out a gun, checks it unemotionally, and blows his brains out.

Do you think that ending is out of place given the overwhelming comic elements of the story?

[Rores28]

Its funny you say that because my knee-jerk reaction to the ending was somewhat ambivalent. I was torn between genius, and cheap shock value. Upon consideration the ending was totally appropriate and I don't think out of place at all, except in the sense that it was meant to be out of place. The sharp contrast of the conlusion and the light and silly aspects just made the ending more poignant.


Before we move on from this story, I wanted to ask if people thought the ending was appropriate. Is it prepared or is it just a trite surprise ending?

Now I don't think it's a trite surprise ending. It is prepared thematically. We know that Seymore has attempted suicide before. We know he has tried to shock Muriel and we expect him to go further. So it doesn't come out of the blue.

However, the tone of the story is comic. There is the comic dialogue between Muriel and her mother, where they don't allow each other to complete their thoughts. There are the funny descriptions of Seymore's insanity. There is little Sybil trying to sound out Seymore's name, playing with the words. There is the cute exchange between Seymore and Sybil, the childish jealousy of Sybil for the girl by the piano, the imaginative play of the banana fish image. There is the hilarious image of Seymore walking on the beach tightly wrapped in a robe carrying a water float under his arm. And there is hilarious exchange about his feet in the elevator with that woman. All very light and comic. But then he methodically takes out a gun, checks it unemotionally, and blows his brains out.

Do you think that ending is out of place given the overwhelming comic elements of the story?

[Windup]

A bit off topic here (relates to Glass family though), has anyone read Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction? I read Raise High... no prob, but Seymour an introduction I couldn't even get into :(

I'll check into this story tomorrow :)

[qimissung]

I have not read that, Windup, although I have read Franny of Franny and Zoey.

I found the ending quite shocking, but I think it was definitely carefully prepared by Salinger. Perhaps it might be more helpful to ask if it works, and I think it does. It reminds me so much of the poem Richard Corey.

I have to add that I did not find the story so very comical. I found the dialog between Muriel and her mother to be extremely annoying, and the conversation between Seymour and Sybil quite charming. It was made very apparent that Seymour was much more comfortable with the child and her world than he was with the woman and the adult world that actually belonged to him. I can relate to this. I like children as a rule better than I do adults. Which makes me wonder a little, was Seymour suffering from PTSD or was he simply a misfit? There isn't enough information in the story for me to make a definte decision. I feel strongly that the war was important in binging about a sea-change in his personality, that perhaps Muriel and what she had to offer worked before the war, but was not going to be even close to sufficient for the person he was afterwards.

But it is absolutely brilliant on Salinger's part to give us all the information he has to impart on Seymour in two carefully constructed sets of dialog, after which the decision is made and the action taken. Is it appropriate? I don't know. It did seem sudden and out of the blue-for us. But not, undoubtedly for Seymour, who lived it. His doubts, as it were, had been put to rest.


To review Seymour's description of bananafish:
their habits are very peculiar;
they lead a very tragic life;
they swim into a hole where there's a lot of bananas;
they're very ordinary looking fish when they swim in;
But once they get in they behave like pigs;
after that, they're so fat they can't get out of the hole again;
They get banana fever ... They die.

Ok, so what if Seymour here were alluding to himself and others like him who have been scarred by certain horrific experiences in life? In Seymour's case, the most we can glean is that he's come back unwell from the war; most likely he's suffering from combat stress reaction. We don't know if he also endured psychological/emotional hardships at other times in his life; but suffice to say that his temperament is rather more suited to pursuits of poetry and music and conversations with tiny tots instead of warfare.
So there he was, just your regular rather mellow kind of guy (ordinary looking when they swim in). But alas, he goes to war (into the hole) and there he is confronted with horrific experiences (a lot of bananas) that he is not able to handle (he behaves like a pig; gets fat). And what he's lived through has been so ghastly perhaps and he just couldn't get a grip so that now he is all mangled and broken inside (can't get out of the hole again). So now he is terribly ill in his soul (banana fever) and as far as he's concerned, he's doomed. So for him it's a perfect day for bananafish ... it's time to die.

I was wondering also on how come Seymour hit upon "bananafish" in particular. I think it was simply because moments earlier he and Sybil had been discussing her bathing suit which she pointed out was yellow.... so yellow could perhaps be associated with banana; and fish - well, there was the ocean right in front of them.

Very astute and spot on, Bouquin, btw.


I think that this is the key in Seymore's mode and place of death. It is loud, messy, and something that Muriel would be unable to ignore, unlike the many things she has ignored. She may or may not have been upset, but it is not the kind of thing that can be overlooked.

While she has ignored so many things, and continues to live in her happy world, Seymore has been crying out for help with his behavior. He needs the unflappable love and acceptance that only children can give, and instead he has a wife who simply doesn't care, and in-laws that may or may not care, but only about how it may affect their daughter.

I also agree with your assessment, apple pie, hence the ending. THAT at least will get Muriel's attention, if only for awhile. Once the furor dies down, I suspect that she, like Sybil, will run off "without regret" as her shock recedes.

[qimissung]

I did'nt intend or plan to post twice. I'm not sure how it happened. Sorry.

[LMK]

Before we move on from this story, I wanted to ask if people thought the ending was appropriate. Is it prepared or is it just a trite surprise ending?

Now I don't think it's a trite surprise ending. It is prepared thematically. We know that Seymore has attempted suicide before. We know he has tried to shock Muriel and we expect him to go further. So it doesn't come out of the blue.

However, the tone of the story is comic. There is the comic dialogue between Muriel and her mother, where they don't allow each other to complete their thoughts. There are the funny descriptions of Seymore's insanity. There is little Sybil trying to sound out Seymore's name, playing with the words. There is the cute exchange between Seymore and Sybil, the childish jealousy of Sybil for the girl by the piano, the imaginative play of the banana fish image. There is the hilarious image of Seymore walking on the beach tightly wrapped in a robe carrying a water float under his arm. And there is hilarious exchange about his feet in the elevator with that woman. All very light and comic. But then he methodically takes out a gun, checks it unemotionally, and blows his brains out.

Do you think that ending is out of place given the overwhelming comic elements of the story?

I don't know that I think of the story as comic, unless it is tragic comedy. There might be some quips that might be considered humorous, but I don't think it is funny.

I think the conversation between Muriel and her mother is sad; they are on such different wave lengths, but neither of them concerned with Seymore really (one afraid, the other amused).

I think the same of the conversation between Sybil and Seymore; one upset about the poaching piano bench partner and the other who seems somewhat ambivalent. Perhaps he’s teasing, perhaps he doesn’t care, and perhaps he really doesn’t know…the color of her bathing suit for example.

As far as the ending goes, first, as I said before I thought he was going to drown Sybil, but that didn’t happen. When he picked up the gun, I thought briefly and only briefly, that he might shoot Muriel, but then I knew he’d turn it on himself.

I wasn’t surprised, but it was kind of…well, we have to end the story now, so let’s have him shoot himself when he gets to the room.

Kind of bizarre after the outburst in the elevator, it showed too much passion (even though it was about feet) for him to have pulled the trigger then. It would have been more consistent, in my opinion, if there had been no yelling about feet or if that were important to the story that there might be another interlude. For example, he goes to his room, showers and dresses, takes the lift down to play the piano, someone looks at his feet and he turns his eyes away, goes to the piano, but nothing comes out of him, he goes back up the lift to the room where Muriel is now getting up from her nap and moving about getting ready for the evening, perhaps prattling about nothing or ignoring Seymore entirely, steps into the bathroom and then he shoots himself.

I tend to re-write parts of books, especially endings, for my own taste after I read and try to digest the original author’s writings.

[Virgil]

I'm surprised at all who thought the story wasn't comic. All of Salinger's best work is comic. Thanks for your responses.

I will say the ending is appropriate in this sense: As Seymore is trying to shock Muriel and others into reality, so too does Salinger shock us with this sudden and dramatically unexpected ending. Aesthetics follows the theme.

[LMK]

I'm surprised at all who thought the story wasn't comic. All of Salinger's best work is comic. Thanks for your responses.

I will say the ending is appropriate in this sense: As Seymore is trying to shock Muriel and others into reality, so too does Salinger shock us with this sudden and dramatically unexpected ending. Aesthetics follows the theme.

I suppose I just don't think that Seymore cares what Muriel thinks one way or another; just as she is oblivious to his needs, he is apathetic towards her.

[Virgil]

I suppose I just don't think that Seymore cares what Muriel thinks one way or another; just as she is oblivious to his needs, he is apathetic towards her.
Hmm, how apathetic could he be if shoots himself beside her?

[LMK]

Hmm, how apathetic could he be if shoots himself beside her?

I think it was just a place, didn't matter, and honestly, I doubt she even screamed when it happened, or if she did, it was because she was startled more than anything. Then she probably made arrangements to have her things removed from the room. She was Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948, I don’t think he was expecting a reaction, at least I don’t think that was why he chose to do it in the room (twin beds, right? well in was 1948), rather than say in the shower or out in the hallway.

[EJMathews]

I read this story years and years ago and remember that I thought it odd of Mr. Salinger because usually his adolescents were the misunderstood and the adults were the phonies, but in this story there is a crossover in Seymore Glass. It's as if he can see the phoniness of both age groups; the wife and her family are materialistic and worried about the looks of things rather than finding out and sorting out the real cause of a potential problem and the little girl is jealous; again, bringing a material quality, that is "my place" for example.

I thought it a fitting end for a character of Salinger that was not to his usual style to kill himself, because he doesn't belong in a Salinger story.

I know that is somewhat outside the conversation about the story, but it is what I thought of when I first read it.

[LMK]

King Mob,

Will you open a new thread tomorrow for the second Short Story of August? If so I'll wait for it.

[bouquin]

To know about the other members of Seymour's family read Franny and Zooey.




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Currently reading: The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)