re: Seymour's Suicide

Laura Boyce (laboyce@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu)
Fri, 18 Jul 1997 12:16:15 -0400 

Seymour's Suicide 

Or how about Seymour's Liberation?  (moksha) 

I think the war really affected Seymour.  Before he went to war he had
his views on the world and was secure about them.  The war shook him up.
He tried to make sense of the insanity of war.  Because war is insane
yet it is so REAL too.  And we do know from reading interviews and
Hamilton's biography that the war really shook up Salinger.  How could
it not?  The Holocaust defies everything we have ever known; it defies
logic of any kind. 

So Seymour was thrown into questioning everything he has ever known. 
And he gets depressed (such a mild and such a wrong word for this
situation but bear with me please).  He can't live in a world or LIKE a
world anymore that lets all of this insanity go on.  And then Muriel
enters the picture.  She is so simple and beautiful because she can
survive in this world.  She is "brave".  He thinks that she must have
something to her that is so extraordianry because she can live and
survive in this world, something he has a hard time doing.  So he clings
to her and loves her simplicity and tries to be a part of her world to
save himself.

Then he realizes she doesn't have anything extraordinary at all.  She is
simple and ignorant and that is what saves her.  She is simple and she
is phony.  She is superficial.  She is illusion.  (maya)  To put it
modern, she has no clue. 

And he had already been thinking about killing himself.  He brought the
gun with him.  And Sybil might have been able to stop him possibly. 
Innocent children.  Simple.  Untainted.  He kissed her foot out of sheer
adoration and happiness when he saw the simple beauty of her enjoying
the waves and squealing in delight.  But yet she is unkind to little
dogs.  He gets dissapointed in her when she sees the bananafish.  The
phoniness and world of illusion has sucked her in too.  This sends him
over the edge. 

And he kills himself.  He escaped this horrible phony place that masks
the realities of life; that things as deplorable as the Holocaust go on
and we play simple and ignorant so we don't have this knowledge. 
Otherwise it too will kill us.  Why live in this terrible world?  And it
can begin in the innocence of a child that hurts little dogs.  (and the
timing is good.  He comes full circle, has completed the cycle, back to
their honeymoon place.  It started and ended there.  Very symbolic. 
Very cyclical, like the Hindu's conception of time ­ not linear.)

But I think he is reacting to the whole slough of questions that arised
from the Holocaust (and many did of course ­ many discussions and books
on the subject).  How can g­d let this happen?  How can g­d let this
happen to His Chosen (the Jews)?  Is there a g­d even?  Is there ANY
sense to this world?  I think Seymour is reacting to all of these
questions that did arise from the Holocaust because he identified with
the Jews (being part Jewish).  Yet his philosophy of life, his world
view, was Eastern (Indian to be precise ­ I don't think he had gone Zen
yet).  So he was wrestling with the questions of life from his Eastern
(slightly Jewish) point of view and he cracked.  But he cracked in that
he found no sense in this world.  And he was saddened.  And he saw no
more innocence and hope in this world.  Sybil had ruined it.  (I could
go on and  would like to but I think no one would read on.  If you care
to hear more, let me know). 

So that's in a nutshell my take on this.  The war played a big part.  It
was in reaction to the war.  And he wrestled with those questions (like
Job did) but in his Eastern frame of mind. And to be precise, I don't
think there is anything Zen about this.  I think this is all pure Indian
and Hindu philosophy.  As "Teddy" will further explain.