Themes
One of J.D. Salinger’s nine short stories is called, A Perfect Day for Bananafish. Our group in English class read Bananafish. My role in our group is the philosopher. Being the philosopher, I will identify morals and themes within the Bananafish story. While reading Bananafish, the first thing I picked up on was that the little girl named Sybil Carpenter kept saying, “see more glass.” Her mother didn’t acknowledge the little girl when she kept saying, “see more glass.” I completely overlooked it until I realized that one of the other characters in the story is named Seymour Glass. Then it clicked for me that the little girl and Seymour had something in common. A few paragraphs later, Sybil and Seymour meet up. Long story short, Seymour and Sybil go in the water, and they go hunting for the “Bananafish.” Afterwards, the girl runs away and Seymour returns to his hotel room, and he commits suicide in front of his girlfriend. Seymour is a character who recently returned from the war.
Being the philosopher, I figured out that there really are a few important morals and themes to this short story. Seymour is going through post-traumatic stress and he has a lot of psychological problems. Personally, I believe Seymour almost hides in the innocence of the small children. Scarred from his experiences in the war and suffering from post-traumatic stress, Seymour finds refuge in children. His love life suffers due to the enormous lack of communication. His girlfriend, Muriel, only cares about class and appearances. Seymour likes children because they live in a simple world that is free from greed and adult suffering. Sybil communicates with Seymour in a way that calms him. Seymour misses his childhood, and he hates all of the psychological pain that he experiences in the adult world. He suffers from the stress and worry of having fought in a war. Seymour hovers uncomfortably between the two worlds, one of them being the struggles of the adult world and the other is the childhood innocence. Seymour’s mind is mentally unstable and unfortunately this results in suicide. The main moral of the story is enjoying your childhood innocence while you have it. Also, the adult world is harder than you think. One last lesson that I have learned from this great short story is to always have good communication.
Being the philosopher, I figured out that there really are a few important morals and themes to this short story. Seymour is going through post-traumatic stress and he has a lot of psychological problems. Personally, I believe Seymour almost hides in the innocence of the small children. Scarred from his experiences in the war and suffering from post-traumatic stress, Seymour finds refuge in children. His love life suffers due to the enormous lack of communication. His girlfriend, Muriel, only cares about class and appearances. Seymour likes children because they live in a simple world that is free from greed and adult suffering. Sybil communicates with Seymour in a way that calms him. Seymour misses his childhood, and he hates all of the psychological pain that he experiences in the adult world. He suffers from the stress and worry of having fought in a war. Seymour hovers uncomfortably between the two worlds, one of them being the struggles of the adult world and the other is the childhood innocence. Seymour’s mind is mentally unstable and unfortunately this results in suicide. The main moral of the story is enjoying your childhood innocence while you have it. Also, the adult world is harder than you think. One last lesson that I have learned from this great short story is to always have good communication.