Re: Water and the Glasses
Diego Dell'Era (dellerad@sinectis.com.ar)
Thu, 22 Jan 1998 00:06:32 -0800
Bethany.M.Edstrom@Dartmouth.EDU (Bethany M. Edstrom) wrote:
)
Just wondering...what does everyone make of the many important scenes in
the Glass stories that are centered around water?
)
you explain how water is like glass by way of reflection. it reminded me
that Boo Boo, when walking towards his son, has to avoid looking at him
directly because of the reflection of the sun on the sea. perhaps it's a
sign of the child's impenetrable mood, which her mother struggles to
penetrate (in a highly skilled way, very detached yet lovingly). i'd
like to know what do you make of this passage of the story.
another instance of water as a sign of obscurity is (i think) the diving
goggles that the boy throws away to the sea. they belonged to the elder
Glass brothers, Webb and Seymour, who were engaged as we know in a
spiritual quest: is that what the goggles simbolize, the research of the
(spiritual) depths?. however, the boy pays no attention to them, and
discards them with a spontaneous fling. i took this as an example of
what you wrote somewhere else:
)
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.
)
the childish "literal act" as a behaviorally literal act could be
interpreted by us adult readers (or nearly) as a rejection of the
spiritual heritage from Seymour and Buddy, by a boy who later on shows
this interpreting innocence in a funny way (kite-kike). what do you
think? please come up with other inter-story linking triggers as the
water-glass stuff. i find them very nice :)
PS: from a materialistic point of view, glass is but sand (beach!)
--
diego dell'era (dellerad@sinectis.com.ar)