Subject: Re: Muriel questions
From: LeeG (LeeG@taft.pvt.k12.ct.us)
Date: Tue Apr 29 1997 - 10:05:10 GMT
>>another salinger note: started re-reading "nine stories", and thinking
>>about 'apdfb", and one thing keeps going through my mind, WHY did seymour
>>marry muriel? She's obviously the antithesis of his soul. The only
>>'logical' thing that i could think of would be that he married her
>>because he felt, to an extent, that by dating someone non-glassesque, he
>>could save himself, which he knew even further down, was horribley not
>>true.
Seymour's life as a perfectionist Zen poet with pants that don't fit isn't the
easiest life to live, and I think he was trying to escape the complications of
being himself by marrying Muriel, a shallow "spiritual tramp" but infinitely
uncomplicated. He views that kind of life with a kind of wonder, and almost
delights in it, while not wanting to partake of it himself; the same way
someone would get a pet and love it and its simplicity but would not
necessarily want to be the pet. (I kinda feel unfair comparing Muriel to an
animal, though.) I think Muriel married him as kind of a trophy piece, in the
sense that there aren't very many Seymour-types out there, and also perhaps to
separate herself somewhat from her mother. In RHTRBC, it was established that
there is a close bond between mother and daughter, and I don't mean that Muriel
resents that and is trying to escape or anything, but that she is trying to
establish her own identity from that of her mother, especially considering her
mother's proficiency in all things.
-Genee
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