Franny Pregnant?
Kemp, Loring (lkemp@kilstock.com)
Mon, 16 Feb 1998 17:11:00 -0500
DC wrote:
This may be true, but you can't wholly dismiss the idea. We have the
advantage of all the other stories, especially Zooey, to determine what
her
"problem" actually was. When it was published part of the controversy
about
the story was the belief that she was pregnant. If you read it as a
stand
alone story its easy to see that possibility. Salinger has a certain
quality
that make his stories easy to interpret in multiple ways.
>> A HA! Fabulous observation. Although I have never thought that
Franny was pregnant, that belief was very much based on having read
Zooey. Your take on this pregnancy thing struck me as similar to the
"Seymour shooting Muriel" idea. As I recall, one of our very own
bananafishers proved that by removing the very last sentence of APDFB, a
classroom full of students came to assume that Seymour shot his wife.
Why? Because of certain *signs* throughout the story that led them to
believe that Seymour was on the brink of a breakdown that would cause
him to harm Muriel. But again, we all *know* Seymour, through other
books and stories, so the idea that Seymour would shoot Muriel is
ridiculous to us. What if that were not the case and we had been the
ones in that classroom with the last sentence missing?
The same goes for Franny. There are "signs" that could easily lead the
reader to think Franny was pregnant. A lot of people have argued that
they are based on old-fashioned assumptions of what pregnant women are
like (hormonal, overly-sensitive, mood-swings), but I'm not ready to
tackle that yet. But without Zooey, how well would we have gotten to
know Franny, and how ridiculous would the pregnancy theory seem? I
wonder.
I ramble because I'm at work and have to type really fast - but I did
try and capitalize and spell check. So there. Thanks.
Loring