Re: I'm still here
Bethany M. Edstrom (Bethany.M.Edstrom@Dartmouth.EDU)
Mon, 19 Jan 1998 15:22:38 -0500 (EST)
--- You wrote:
Could
"stifling his naturally hideous laughter" be viewed in the same light as
whispering secret plans into the floppy ears of dogs--unbeknownst to their
dopey owners--as the work of a completely healthy juvenile imagination?
--- end of quoted material ---
sure--it's all part of the game the young narrator is playing with himself--I
buy that entirely. But the words--and the idea they describe--take on a
completely different meaning when they are remembered by the adult narrator,
for once they are spoken in the adult voice they have been filtered, and they
Mean Something. That is a big difference between adults and children, since we
have been on that subject lately: adults' thoughts go through some sort of
filtration system before they are spoken to assure that they have the necessary
and intended levels of Meaning, Content, and (a word I hate) Depth. This
doesn't necessarily mean that everyone will find meaning in the words, but the
point is that adults' public words are calculated, and those of children tend
to be less so.
In this case Salinger makes good use of this device, allowing a perfectly
literal act of childish imagination to also have a more adult meaning.