Literary Criticism
Quote 1: said by mELISSA Ingalls
“I love the unseen commentary in this short story. There are a lot of ‘banana fish’ in our world - meaning that there are a lot of greedy people…I sort of feel sorry for Seymour. He reminded me a little of the character Lennie from ‘Of Mice and Men’ just not as slow. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this short story.” (Ingalls)
RESPONSE
My response to this comment is that I agree with Melissa Ingalls completely. When the story started to go into depth about Seymour i thought of Lennie from "Of the Mice and Men" instantly. i think i thought of Lennie because both Seymour and Lennie seem to be children stuck in adult bodies weather they were born that way (like Lennie) or became that way (like Seymour). However I didnt think of the bananafish to be greedy people in the world but now that it has been mentioned, I can see where Melissa is coming from. The bananafish story reminded me of Seymour experience with the war. I thought this because going into the banana hole was a metaphor for going to war, eating all the bananas symbolizes the war (which he survived) and not being able to get out and dying from "banana fever" is the damage from the war and resulting in his suicide. I agree that this story was very enjoyable to read.
Quote 2: Said by Dustin voliva
"...JD Salinger has a gift for capturing the downtrodden and broken. He won't make you smile, but you will think."(Voliva)
Response
What Dustin Voliva said is completely true. So far what I have read by JD. Salinger hasn't been very uplifting or simple. Instead he writes the reality and reality isn't always easy. Not everything has a happy ending or works out in the end, Salinger writes about the truth of the situation, no matter what circumstances . Also, he makes you think, read it over, read it until you uncover the true message he's trying to get across. Its almost as if everything he says has another meaning behind it.