Subject: (no subject)
From: Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Date: Sun Jun 22 1997 - 13:40:29 GMT
>Can anyone comment on the significance or lack of significance in the
>following:
>
>In Franny and Zooey, Zooey takes a handkerchief and places it on his head
>as he walks to Buddy's and Seymour's old room to call Franny. In
>For Esme'- with Love and Squalor, Esme's little brother briefly
>places a napkin on his head just before he sits down in the tea room.
In many religious contexts, one covers the head (with a cloth, or a veil,
or a skullcap, or a hat) when entering sacred territory. I suspect that
the first instance was a much-intended nod and wink about that. I don't
speak with any special knowledge, but for people who are as self-reflexive
as the Glass family, it would not be unusual for one of them to do this.
Several of them are painfully aware of the sacred and the profane in daily
life.
In Esme, I think it was just a boy acting like a boy. I don't know if
there is any significance to note, but perhaps my reading of it is shallow.
> The Laughing Man has a red poppy
>petal veil, but that might be stretching things a bit much.
I think perhaps. Perhaps.
--tim o'connor
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