esme is me?
denis jonnes (djengltl@mbox.nc.kyushu-u.ac.jp)
Thu, 18 Feb 1999 16:47:19 +0900
rick
Wonderful capsule analysis of Esme (has it really been put so well
elsewhere?)--but one quick question re the business of identity (a term
which implies some sort of continuity and coherence of self, some sort
of "intactness") and the dynamics of the redemptive encounter/transfer,
things that are not entirely clear to me. Are we to understand the
healing process as a matter of regression (which brings me back to
questions raised a week or two ago re Salinger, Freud and Jung), which
seems to me to involve some sort of dis-identification, a return to a
state of pure potentiality? Or are we meant to see Esme as role model
(bad term)--a girl who has survived the deaths of mother and father and
achieved a special kind of strength and grace, i.e. maturity? Or, are
we working in another realm altogether, with something more mystical,
angelic, muse-like? In all of this, to what extent is Esme an "is me"?
In one way--the charm of Salinger?--everything is completely obvious,
at same time, given more than a second's thought, Salinger has one, to
revert to Hemingway-ese, up against the ropes.
D. Jonnes