Nine Stories Salinger Analysis

306 Words2 Pages
In “Nine Stories”, Salinger starts the novel with an epigraph that reads, “We know the sound of two hands clapping. But what is the sound of one hand clapping?”. The answer to this question remains vague until the readers finish the last story of the collection, “Teddy”. In this story, the readers are faced with a protagonist that is very different from the protagonists from other stories. Instead of the usual immature, pure, and innocent children, Salinger places a young boy named Teddy who has great wisdom on spirituality and religion. This is ironic as in the previous stories, adults were pursuing childhood idyll through the young characters, but in “Teddy”, the adults turn to Teddy, who is a child, to find wisdom. At one point, Teddy asks