A Perfect Day for Bananafish
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"A Perfect Day for Bananafish" is a well known short story written by J. D. Salinger, first published in the January 31, 1948 issue of The New Yorker, and was later collected in 1949's 55 Stories from the New Yorker, as well as his 1953 collection, Nine Stories.
It is the earliest writing concerning Salinger's Glass family, and details a day spent by Seymour Glass on the beach, as his wife Muriel talks to her mother. It is widely praised for its depiction of the shell-shocked non-conformist Seymour, as illustrated by the story about the mythical bananafish that he tells to a young girl.
Other Glass Family stories include Franny and Zooey, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction, and "Hapworth 16, 1924".
Interpretation
Due to the fact that Salinger never discussed the meanings of his stories, the meaning of this story is widely disputed. One theory, however, it is beleived that the bananafish that Seymour describes is metaphorically referring to himself. The hole that the bananafish swims into is quite possibly an allusion to the war Seymour served in (possibly a reference to a foxhole of some sort, although it cannot be certain that Seymour actually spent time in a foxhole). That the bananafish eats so many bananas that it is unable to escape the hole is beleived to be a reference to how Seymour's mind had gotten so filled up with so many horrors, that although he has left the "hole", in his mind he will never be able to escape it, and thus must put an end to things, which he does at the end of the story.
External links
- Pari (at IMDB): An Iranian movie, unauthorized adaptation of Franny and Zooey and A Perfect Day for Bananafish.