Talk:A Perfect Day for Bananafish

message: added the word in between appeared and Nine Stories. 
replaced the word written with a comma (for clarity) after the words Glass Family
(The above was added by 167.6.245.98 at 11:56, 30 July 2004)
THE GUILTY UNDERTAKER: okay i added the interpretation section, it's not particularly good but it can be improved upon. 
(The above was added by The Guilty Undertaker at 21:15, 13 April 2006)
Whose interpretation is this?!  It's terrible; I mean, god-awful. Turly-burly 04:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I'm removing the link to the online version of "A Perfect Day for Bananafish".  I *think* that website's content consitutes piracy in the U.S.  If I'm completely off-base feel free to revert. Turly-burly 01:21, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link to Unlicensed Online Publishing of Copyrighted Work? 

message: Salinger makes an allusion to German Poet Rainer Maria Rilke.  I think this information would make a good addition - any other allusions or references might be helpful as well.
The quote "mixing memory and desire" is an allusion to the first part of T.S. Eliot's poem 'The Waste Land' which is about the loss of spiritual values in a materialistic 20th century. - Oh fairweather
Good point, I added the bit about the "book" he sent Muriel, in German. You're right--it was likely Rilke. And the memory and desire piece is important in the story as well, kind of a last bit of scholarship from him before his swan song. 
Jim Steele (talk) 04:09, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Allusions to other works of art 

message: isnt for else with love and squalor about buddy i think so im adding it to the list unless someone says its not 203.194.42.209 (talk) 06:59, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  glass family 

message: Can you explain.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.27.137.185 (talk) 18:10, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  How dose salinger,s use of narration affect the meaning of "A perfect Day For Bananafish" 

message: I'm largely unsatisfied with explanations of "the mystery" of this story, which unravel from the point of Seymour's war experience. My explanation for Seymour's suicide is that he had pedophilic tendencies, known to himself and possibly other family members, and in the water Seymour was exhibiting himself to the little girl named Sybil. He showed her his penis, the bananafish. Seymour hated himself for this weakness, the inability to discontinue morally inappropriate behavior. His pedophilia victimized subjects that on another level he liked and respected. Like one who is dangling over the precipice while holding on to two sides of a canyon as it ever widens, the internal conflict between social expectation and primitive response to his perversion was too great and Seymour eventually had to let go.
"Well. In the first place, he said it was a perfect crime the Army released him from the hospital--my word of honor. He very definitely told your father there's a chance--a very great chance, he said--that Seymour may completely lose control of himself. My word of honor."
"There's a psychiatrist here at the hotel," said the girl.
http://www.freeweb.hu/tchl/salinger/perfectday.html "A Perfect Day For Bananafish" § 51-52
So, we should ask at what point did the story's subject "lose control of himself"? Certainly not where any adult might have intervened, but instead at a place and time that was invisible to the more comprehending adults. The loss of control was not at the hotel room with a pistol, but in the ocean, in the presence of someone unable to interpret the correct meaning of the appearance of a "bananafish". Zoologically, there is no such thing as a bananafish, as most readers might conclude. Young children can easily embellish an otherwise incongruous event with their imagination. When I was young, I imagined seeing an ocean of fish, every bit real to me at the time, when I looked through the holes of an iron manhole cover. As an adult, I am amazed by my ability to transform shifting water patterns into stingrays, sharks and the like. Therefore, what exactly could a banafish be? And so close to shore, making its appearance coincidental with the clandestine tryst of adult man and juvenile girl?
"Well, they swim into a hole where there's a lot of bananas. They're very ordinary-looking fish when they swim in. But once they get in, they behave like pigs. Why, I've known some bananafish to swim into a banana hole and eat as many as seventy-eight bananas." He edged the float and its passenger a foot closer to the horizon. "Naturally, after that they're so fat they can't get out of the hole again. Can't fit through the door."
Seymour could objectify his sickness. Unlike controlling a sneeze, Seymour was self-reflective enough to choose the opportunity to release his peaks of sociopathy.
In short, a story about a man who exposed himself to a little girl at the beach, just out of eye shot from the party, his final "hurrah"and then killed himself.
1. "A Perfect Day For Bananafish" by J.D. Salinger, The New Yorker, January 31, 1948, pages 21-25 § 51-52
2. Ibid.
(comment added by Gregory.george.lewis )      DGG ( talk ) 04:54, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  What does it all mean? 

message: The article shouldn't mention PTSD as the sole reason for Seymour's opting to discontinue living. It's misleading to simplify it. He mentions scars on his wrist, throws a rock at Charlotte's face, has violent thoughts, and even forsees the death in Hapworth. It's highly unlikely WWII caused him to do it.
Jim Steele (talk) 03:17, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it's fine that you feel that way, but you cannot add your opinions to the article. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 03:43, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: it isn't just ptsd

message: Literary editor Joel Salzburg reports that John M. Howell, in his essay “Salinger in the Waste Land” purposefully “derived the controlling metaphors of The Catcher in the Rye  from T. S. Eliot’s [poem] The Waste Land. And further, Howell “to establish his argument…appended three epigraphs to his essay from Salinger’s fiction, two of which, “The Inverted Forest” and “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” do in fact make allusions to Eliot’s poems.”Salzburg, 1990, p. 8 The epigraph of interest here, provided by Howell is this: “Ah, Sharon Lipschutz…How that name comes up. Mixing memory and desire…Sybil, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll see if we can catch a bananafish.” Bloom, 2007, p. 54
Warren French, a Salinger scholar includes, in his book on Salinger, a chapter entitled “You, T. S. Eliot” linking The Inverted Forest, as does Howell, to The Waste Land.French, 1963, p. 71
 Ian Hamilton acknowledges the connection between Salinger’s Sybil, and the  Cumaean Sybil when he writes that the character “...deserves her name...” Hamilton, 1967, p. 28: “Only a few of these details can be mentioned, but most prominent is the graded list of women in the story. The youngest, the three-and-a-half Sharon Lipschutz, has Seymour’s entire approval. He mentions her to Sybil Carpenter to chide Sybil over her incipient jealousy and lack of feeling for others, especially animals. Sybil, slightly older, is still young enough to deserve her name. Prematurely wise, she knows his name is “See more.”
One editor (see preceding exchange) made this complaint:  “And what about that pamphlet Muriel is reading? That article (Sex is Fun--Or Hell). What about that?”
Literary critics Bernice and Sanford Goldstein answer it this way: “In the bananafish story Seymour’s dreadful dilemma is revealed. But the earlier drifting allusion to Eliot’s The Waste Land, ‘Mixing memory and desire’, returns the reader to the opening scene of Muriel’s conversation with her mother. That the world outside of Seymour is ruled by dichotomies is suggested in the paragraph reference to the article Muriel has just finished reading, ‘Sex is Fun – or Hell’”…”
Goldstein has explained her connection to the T.S. Eliot poem as a significant one; Slawenski has done the same with regard to T.S. Eliot. Neither position is merely “opinion”. It’s part of the analysis by reputable scholars on the topic. 
Unfortunately, some editors have hardened their positions on the matter, as if their Wiki reputations are on the line. Worse, this attitude is presented as “intellectual integrity”. Nonsense.
If the section is deemed objectionable, kindly report it to Dispute Resolution for a ruling. 36hourblock (talk) 19:15, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Salinger and Eliot, continued 

message: * We are going to contribute to this article by creating a background section as well as a criticism and reception section. 
* Bibliography:
* Fassano, Anthony. "Salinger's A PERFECT DAY FOR BANANAFISH." The Explicator 66.3 (2008): 149-50. ProQuest. Web. 20 Apr. 2018.
* Cotter, James Finn. "A Source for Seymour's Suicide: Rilke's Voices and Salinger's Nine Stories." Papers on Language & Literature, vol. 25, no. 1, Winter 89, p. 83. EBSCOhost.
* Alsen, Eberhard. A Reader's Guide to J.d. Salinger. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2002. Print.
* Rosenbaum, Ron. "The Flight from Fortress Salinger." New York Times Book ReviewOct 08 2000: 16,7.16. ProQuest. Web. 20 Apr. 2018.
* “JD Salinger.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 19 Aug. 2015, www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/jd-salinger-salinger-timeline/2838/.
* Morrice, Polly. “Descended From Salinger - Books - Review.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 23 Mar. 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/books/review/Morrice-t.html.
* Salerno, Shane, and David Shields. Salinger. Simon & Schuster, 2014.
* Malcolm, Janet. “Justice to J.D. Salinger.” The New York Review of Books, www.nybooks.com/articles/2001/06/21/justice-jd-salinger/.
* Judis, John B. “The Salinger Generation.” The New Republic, 30 Jan. 2010, newrepublic.com/article/72876/the-salinger-generation.
* Salinger, J. D. “A Perfect Day For Bananafish.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 19 June 2017, www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/01/31/a-perfect-day-for-bananafish. --Mmeyer7 (talk) 15:52, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plan for Revision 

message: There remains to be some work done here and this article could benefit from a characters section seeing that the members of the Glass family carry over to more Salinger short stories; someone could even link to the page about the Glass family already created. The reception and criticism section could use more information from a breadth of sources. Most criticism and analysis of the short story focus on Seymour, but it would be nice to see scholarly criticism about other events or characters referenced. The plot summary section should be cleaned up; for a short story, this section is too long and wordy. The introduction section states some background knowledge that might be more useful in the new background section. Lkobus (talk) 14:08, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Future Revisions