Subject: Re: S
From: Pasha Paterson (gpaterso@richmond.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 28 2000 - 14:33:13 EST
At 13:04 02/28/00 EST, Smmrs@aol.com wrote:
>The fact that Seymour had that gun in his bag all the time. That is, on
the drive there, during the check-in etc. So he must of planned on this for
a while.
He might not have "planned" it this way, but certainly the impulse has been
there for quite a while. Perhaps not even using the gun. Remember Muriel
and her mother talking cryptically about how Seymour apparently drove their
car into a tree. Makes ya wonder.
>I am still analyzing the glance that Seymour gives to the sleeping Muriel
before he commits suicide. Is it contemp? Sympathy? Sorrow? I just dont know
There are as many possible interpretations of that look as there are
Salinger readers. Of course, being Salinger, he gives us absolutely no
clue of Seymour's expression. Was he crying? Was he snarling? Was he
totally expressionless, as we imagine Teddy might have been? Any of these
drags with it a whole mess of implications.
Another possible interpretation is that he at least cares enough to look at
her when he "leaves". Sybil runs away from him "without regret." The girl
in the elevator storms out "without looking back." At the very least,
when Seymour leaves someone he can no longer deal with, he cares enough to
look 'em in the eye. It's a simplistic sort of view, but it could have
important suggestions into Seymour's character.
Under this view, Seymour's look is one of a disappointed, disillusioned
teacher. Seymour and Buddy spent their childhood teaching their younger
siblings about...well...whatever you want to say they were teaching.
Muriel represents Seymour's first large-scale attempt to do the same with
someone outside the Glass family. Clearly, he fails, and Muriel is still
as airheaded as the day they met. I am slowly warming up to the idea
(presented about a year ago, in a discussion of Muriel) that Seymour's
simpleminded wife is not as detrimental a force as I thought. Sure, she's
more concerned with polishing her nails than answering the phone, and more
concerned with sleeping than spending time on the beach with her husband,
but she is just a girl living her life and not really caring about anything
deep or meaningful or spiritual. Her life is effortless, and she will not
raise that effort level to accomodate Seymour's demanding regimen of
quasiBuddhist dogma.
Seymour, sitting on the opposite bed, looking at his wife, sees the same
potential that he must have seen when he married her, but, feeling utterly
defeated as a teacher, has resigned himself to failure. He probably still
loves Muriel, and so he looks back at her, possibly with a bit of contempt,
but mostly with a look of disappointed love. "Poor girl, she never
understood, she never grew." And then bang.
This view is still only half-baked, but it's an interesting take on the
ending that I just came up with on rereading. (Yeah, so I reread it just
to post. I'm quick at it by now.) Whoever it was who was such a Muriel
fan, especially, what's your take on it?
_________________________________________________
Pasha Paterson gpaterso@richmond.edu
Owner/Designer/Operator, The Digital Dustbin:
http://www.student.richmond.edu/~gpaterso/
_________________________________________________
-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Thu Mar 02 2000 - 19:30:24 EST