Summary

“A Perfect Day for Bananafish” is about a young woman named Muriel Glass who goes to Florida with her husband Seymour Glass on vacation. In a conversation on the phone between Muriel and her mother, her mother expresses worry about the mental stability of Muriel’s husband Seymour as a result of the war. Muriel’s mother insists that she come home right away but Muriel refuses and tells her that everything is fine. Later the scene changes and Seymour is with a young girl, Sybil Carpenter where he learns about the Bananafish. He learns that the fish go through a banana hole to reach the bananas and can eat over 28 of them, but after eating all those bananas they can’t get out because they are too fat to fit through the hole so they die. After learning about the Bananafish Seymour goes back to his hotel room where he finds his wife Muriel sleeping on one of the two twin sized beds. Seymour sits down on the unoccupied bed and looks at his wife and shoot himself through the right temple.

The cover art of JD Salinger's "A Perfect Day for Bananafish.