Perfect Day For Bananafish Essay

On average it’s said that 22 veterans take their own lives, every single day. In the short story, Perfect Day for Bananafish, J.D. Salinger demonstrates going to war changes a person for life, and can even lead to suicidal tendencies. Seymour Glass is an army veteran returning from WW2 and is on the brink of a physchotic brink. Seymour’s lucid state and unfit marriage leads to him ending his life. In Perfect Day for Bananafish by J.D. Salinger, Seymour is portrayed as a traumatized veteran going psychotic demonstrated through a phone call, state of mind, and trauma, lead to Seymour ending his own life. The reader is introduced to Muriel, Seymour’s wife, in the very first page and learn about Seymour’s psychotic tendencies and Muriel’s mother

Seymour is intruiged by Sybil since she still lives in her own imagination and just like his wife, Seymour wants to leave this world and go to hers so “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."” (Salinger, 5) Seymour plans to play with Sybil instead of talking about how he feels, he shows her. As he avoids his wife while she sleeps in their hotel room, the adult’s in the lobby near the piano, he takes the time to explain the life of a bananfish. He explains how bananafish swim into a hole and eat so much food that "Naturally, after that they're so fat they can't get out of the hole again. Can't fit through the door."(Salinger 6) Seymour hints to what happens to the fish after they eat so many bananas. Sybil’s naviness to society is what amuses Seymour for the time being since Sybil sees nothing wrong with Seymour, just a normal guy. Sybil still young is confused as to what happens to the fish after they eat all the bananas and “Yet even in the goodness, which Seymour loves for its simplicity, there are suggestions of imperfection: on the one hand, it is easily corrupted; on the other, it exists unaware of complexities.” (Bloom, 23) Seymour’s life tetters on the edge of destruction so he stops trying to fix it and chooses the easy way out of living as he expresses his

Seymour brings the boat back from to shore from the bananafish hunt and as Seymour starts to walk away ““Goodbye," said Sybil, and ran without regret in the direction of the hotel.”(Salinger 7) Sybil laughs and ruins away back to her mother as Seymour thinks about what to do next. The reader learns that as Seymour walks back to his hotelroom where Muriel lays, he had a plan of how he was going to end his vacation all along. Seymour walks into his room and as “He glanced at the girl lying asleep on one of the twin beds. Then he went over to one of the pieces of luggage, opened it, and from under a pile of shorts and undershirts he took out an Ortgies calibre 7.65 automatic.” (Salinger 7) Seymour was actively thinking that going on vacation was the perfect time to pack a gun. As he stares at his wife and thinks of Sybil and the war, he still goes through with it as he “Sat down on the unoccupied twin bed, looked at the girl, aimed the pistol, and fired a bullet through his right temple.”(Salinger 7) The reason as to why Seymour ends his life is yet a shock and a debate to critic and readers alike, but the main idea reminas that Seymour was a stranger living in Seymour Glass’s body and “Seymour projects a suicidal fantasy in the famous story of the bananafish, who, when trapped, die. At the end of the story, he kills himself… Shooting himself while sitting next to Muriel is the supremely hostile