JD Salinger’s classic 1951 short story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” features Salinger’s favorite character, Seymour Glass, only to have him killed off several pages later. The story begins in a posh hotel room by the sea, where we overhear Glass’s wife on the phone with her mother discussing Seymour’s mental health. From there, we head to the beach, where Seymour hangs out with a girl of about four named Sybil, telling her stories about the elusive “banana fish.” The story ends with Seymour returning to his hotel room and shooting himself in the head.
Seymour Glass, or, as Sybil calls it, “see more glass,” is a hotly contested short story character in American literature, which gives his transparent name even more irony. People can’t seem to agree on what the guy is like, why he always hangs out with little kids, or more importantly, why he decides to kill himself. There are three main theories about it.
Theory one: Seymour is a banana fish. Not really. In his description to Sybil, banana fish are fish that swim in holes and gorge themselves on so many bananas that they get stuck and die. According to some, this is Seymour’s unorthodox but apt metaphor for the materialistic consumer mentality of post-World War II American society; not that we know anything about it today. This, of course, begs the question, what does Seymour’s suicide mean? Is going back to your fancy hotel room and committing suicide the human equivalent of diving into a banana hole and eating yourself to death? That might explain why Sybil thinks she sees a banana fish; she could be talking about Seymour. Or perhaps Seymour’s suicide is a way of overcoming the material world: abandoning it completely.
Theory two: Seymour is a pervert. Yeah, all that friendship, swimming, and storytelling is just his way of getting close to little girls. You’ll notice, for example, that Seymour grabs Sybil’s ankles when she’s lying on the beach, and then again when he pushes her through the water. When he goes so far as to kiss the bottom of her foot, even four-year-old Sybil is surprised enough to yell, “Hey!” probably remembering something he heard in preschool about a “red light touch.” Embarrassed and/or frustrated, Seymour immediately ends his playdate, returns to the hotel, and commits suicide in shame. The fact that sexual abuse is an ambiguous but recurring theme in other JD Salinger works, especially The Catcher in the Rye, supports the possibility that something is wrong with Seymour’s libido.
Theory Three: Everyone Has Become Too PC A touch isn’t necessarily inappropriate, a kiss isn’t always sexual, adults and kids can hang out in non-creepy ways, and literature doesn’t always have “erotic overtones.” Seymour is drawn to the innocence and naivety of children because his experiences in World War II have left him disillusioned with the adult world, not to mention that talking to Sybills allows him to enjoy the creative side of him. . Seymour makes up a great story about the life and behavior of banana fish, and is tickled pink, in a non-sexual way, when Sybil plays along. Unfortunately, he has trouble putting this prank down when he gets back to the hotel. He jokingly accuses the woman in the elevator of “looking” at her feet and, in a trick only an adult would do, the woman takes offense at her innuendo. The argument escalates until Seymour gets really angry instead of pretending to be angry, and the woman flees the elevator. Realizing that he no longer freezes around adults, Seymour gives up hope of ever being happy and ends his life.
With so many unanswered “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” questions, it’s no wonder Salinger featured Seymour in four more stories, the biggest being the two-part.[Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction].” In these two novels, Seymour’s devoted little brother, Buddy, takes on the challenge of putting Seymour in the role. The fact that his writing is often rambling, disjointed, and impossible to follow suggests that perhaps we just aren’t destined to know
