In A Perfect Day for Bananafish, the reader has an introductory scene of dialogue between an woman (Muriel) and her mother. Muriel is staying with her husband at an upscale resort in Florida. The mother is worried about her daughter, and what might happen because of her eccentric husband, Seymour. Salinger sets us up to think that Seymour is some kind of monster, or at least highly unstable. He does this through short phrases in the dialogue that hint at Seymour's history.
The first way Salinger does this is by having the mother repeatedly ask, "Are you okay?," when we know that Muriel has been married to Seymour for quite some time. The repetition shows the mother's concern, which sets up our thoughts of Seymour. The first example to appear is the mother's worry about Seymour's driving, along with the part about the "trees." It seems Seymour had fairly recently crashed Muriel's family's car because he wanted to see the trees. Muriel's mother then talks about her consultation with a psychiatrist, which adds more to the audience's concern. Then, the doctor's wife asked if Seymour is related to a Suzanne Glass who owned a millinery--a hat-making shop. The glue used to bind hats together was toxic, and prolonged exposure to it had many side effects, including mental ones. This is where the term "mad hatter" originates, and is another subtle hint on Salinger's part. Then the mother mentions something about "Granny's chair" and they talk about Seymour wearing his bathrobe on the beach.
All this makes the reader quite concerned for Sybil. However, the scene can be read as partially confirming our suspicions, with Seymour having malicious intent. This can be supported in spots when her calls her "my love" or when he kisses her foot. However, it is also possible to read the scene as him playing innocently with a little kid. (The foot-kiss is still pretty sketchy though.) In reading this way, we see Seymour as detached from adult society, so he seeks the company of children possibly to re-live his childhood. Also, when read this way, the reader sees Salinger's set-up monster as a very troubled person. The introduction takes on a different meaning that way. I think this is one thing that makes the story interesting, that Salinger sets the reader up thinking that Seymour is a monster, but then shows him to be a very troubled individual. This makes his suicide at the ending all the more tragic.
Your reading of the "mad hatter" was one I definitely hadn't thought of—I like that Salinger sneaks in little details like that one that, if they're noticed, deepen that foreboding feeling we get throughout the first part of the story. As for Seymour's interactions with Sybil, I thought it was interesting when Selena brought up the possible origins of Sybil's name in class the other day, i.e. her being a mythical prophet; it almost made me read the foot-kiss scene as more of a worshipful action (and a non-malicious one), like she had brought some clarity or foresight to his situation. (Which isn't a very happy idea in itself, as it's really only minutes later that his suicide takes place...)
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. Seymour is so far removed the adult society that he seems completely normal during his interaction with Sybil, until the kissing of the foot, which I agree is a little bit sketchy. The millinrey reference you caught was not something I was able to catch and that works in a really interesting way with this story.
ReplyDeleteI know we're in shaky territory here, but I seem to be alone among the class in not being particularly disturbed by the gesture of kissing the bottom of Sybil's foot (which, remember, she's on a raft and her feet are sticking out, pretty much in Seymour's face). I associate it with a gesture of humility (think the washing of feet in a biblical context), or with a kind of benediction (like Lilly suggests, above), like a kiss on the forehead. He's not slobbering over her foot or sucking her toes; there's no hint of eroticism in the narration (and she is a four-year old). She's confused by the gesture, which is admittedly strange and unexpected, but it's not obviously more strange than some of the stuff Seymour says to her.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there is ambiguity in this scene, but the foot kiss just doesn't seem to hit me the same way it hits many of you. It surely doesn't seem like an instance of what Muriel's mother fears--Seymour "completely losing control." He seems very calm and deliberate, even somewhat priestly, at this moment. (And I suppose I should qualify that I don't mean "priestly" in a derogatory, child-abusing sense. Bad choice of analogy, perhaps.)
I don't think anyone will ever completely know if Seymour had malicious intent towards Sybil. But it is significant that he didn't do anything to harm her or scar her. We are just filled with suspicion based on everything we've heard about him. So in the first scene of him, we are practically waiting for him to do something to confirm our suspicion. So even the slightest action of his could trigger our worry that he'll harm Sybil.
ReplyDeleteI like this blog post, Matt! I agree- analyzing Sybil and Seymour's interactions requires a complexed, nuanced reading of the text. You can't just say he kissed her foot, so he's a pedophile. It's important to take Seymour's background into consideration and what he's looking for in the people around him. Sybil offers him an innocent, fun, carefree relationship that Muriel and the other upper-class, materialistic vacationers can't. I wrote a blog post about how I believe that some of Seymour's actions cross a line, but I think there are definitely multiple interpretations.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how this story was viewed when Salinger first wrote it. I'll bet people were less prone to think malicious intent in the foot-kissing scene, but I'm not for certain. Being in the 21st century, we are more prone to be suspicious of the actions of a man when they are directed towards a little girl. It's sort of sad that most tend to jump towards dark conclusions, but it's how we've been programmed really. It's the same reason we look at white vans differently or why when we see a man who has little straggelers of hair sticking out of his chin and upper lip, we label it a "pedostache". I'm guessing these sorts of connotations did not exist in Salinger's time and so the scene with Seymour and Sybil would have been read very differently, and probably a bit more innocently.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your explication of the hat-making connection. This is a very interesting bit of foreshadowing that I am sure goes over the heads of most readers. I too was disturbed by the beach scene when I first read it, but after our class discussion I definitely came to the conclusion that it was an innocent interaction reflective of Seymour's damaged psyche. It is very interesting that modern readers of this story have to grapple with a very different interpretation.
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