Re: de Daumier's head/ego, and Smith's feet
Mattis Fishman (mattis@argos.argoscomp.com)
Fri, 07 Aug 1998 10:57:51 -0400 (EDT)
Hello fellow bananafish,
Thank you Andrew and Jon for bringing up de Daumier-Smith. It certainly
has these enimagtic touches, details that you will never resolve, such as
the age of Sister Irma, or why the Yoshotos moaned. I have a feeling,
though, that it is not important to solve these problems. Instead, we
are being shown a young man dealing with ideas and issues very common, no,
maybe not common but likely to occupy the attention of someone who still
has some time and experience to accumulate before his maturity catches up
to his intelligence and ability, and the uncertainties and enigmas which he
encounters, or perhaps even creates for himself, are part of these issues.
In other words, it is the existence of these little details which help
us get a picture of "Jean" as someone still with some growing up to do,
but whose actual "factual" resolution is irrelevant to the story - which
is why I believe you regrad the story as so satisfying, yet with so many
loose ends.
As for the woman in the shop window, well, that is something more
than a detail, isn't it? It is obviously the major event in the story,
and even more important because of the disclaimer which precedes it.
I have to question what you cite, Jon:
this story, and in fact this scene in this story, is one
the clearest expositions to Salinger's writings -
namely that feet/balance is instinctive, and it's the
occasional interference from something (eg. an audience),
via our head, that causes imbalance, instability.
(though as I type this now, I think that you meant example instead
of exposition). My problem is that it is hard for me to call something
a clear exposition when it requires that I refer to an recurring
symbol to extract a meaning which appears allegorical and almost a moral.
Of course, this is just a word problem, and even considering the story
without the added symbolism, the perspective on the story that you seem to
present overlays the whole sequence of events with a fresh piece of
tracing paper and brings it together with a few concise strokes - I salute
you, M. Yoshoto.
That is, when you write "So this crucial scene shows the
intrusive character throwing the innocent one into imbalance" it struck
me that the lesson Smith learns is to let others be themselves, and see
how his imposing his own vision, and often fantasy upon them leads only
to failure. Though the connection you lead me to between the shop window
girl and the nun, is two way: just as everybody is a nun, so too was
Sister Irma (that was her name, right?) freed from the solipsistic image
he had created for her. And following right along through the breach
in the walls of his imagination came the Yoshotos, Bambi Kramer and eventually
his step-father.
While I think that DDS's change in character, from adolescent insecurity
to healthily honesty is pretty obvious, I am indebted to you for the
insight into how the shop window incident catalyzed this. Thanks again.
Now, for that HABIT business, well I have a problem seeing it in
this story, but it shouts for attention in this fragment from
what is probably my favorite poem:
"Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
Let lovers go sweet and fresh to be undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
Of dark habits,
keeping their difficult balance."
---
all the best,
Mattis