Subject: Re: Salinger's Fire
From: Joshua Stott (jstott@bigplanet.net)
Date: Mon Jun 12 2000 - 18:37:38 GMT
> >William Hochman wrote:
> >Here's my q--shouldn't Muriel have found the gun in the luggage
> >before Seymour uses it in the story? Isn't she (or her mother) going to
> >snoop into every bit of Seymour's hidden life they can?
> To which Cecilia Baader wrote:
> I've been considering this carefully, and I think that Muriel would have
> found that gun-- unless she were really very unconcerned about the whole
> thing. Muriel doesn't remember where she puts sacred gift books from her
> husband. Perhaps it simply means so little to her . . . ?
>
> But no. That doesn't seem right. Or perhaps it's the flawed Bananafish
> narrative, meant to be discarded in favor of some of the truths that follow.
To which I respond:
Could Seymore not have picked up a gun in Florida? Muriel obvious was
oblivious to his whereabouts and spent large portions of time by herself
-- enough time for Seymore to make friends on the beach (or elsewhere
possibly).
We don't even know if Seymore had actually even considered suicide
before the vacation. I would guess that most likely he hadn't. He
possibly didn't even seriously consider it until just prior to the act
itself.
Just another possibility to consider, and one that I might add relies
soley on an analysis of Seymore (a character that we know much more
about that we do his wife or Mother in Law) and no one else...
Josh
A newcomer to bananafish
-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Thu Jul 13 2000 - 23:22:20 GMT