Subject: Seymour's suicide
From: Tania Da Ros (rostania@tin.it)
Date: Tue May 23 2000 - 07:22:58 GMT
I was thinking about Seymour's suicide and its meaning, its meaning for him
and for his brothers. Now, I don't begin to understand the reason why he did
it - probably there were thousands of them, all intertwined, as to me he is
more a person that a character, and a person IMHO is always motivated in
his/her actions by so many things, that to think of only one for suicide
seems to me a little reductive.
Anyway, that was not what I wanted to tell you. What I want to tell you is
that I was reading Buddy's letter to Zooey last night - of the whole Glass
family I feel particularly close to Buddy, and I always turn to him when I
have something on my mind. He says that he has finally decided to speak up
about Seymour's death. And why does he have the urge to do so? Because of
the little girl that has two boy friends, Bobby and Dorothy. That made him
think about Seymour telling him that "all legitimate religious study must
lead to unlearning the differences, the illusory differences, between boys
and girls, animals and stones, day and night, heat and cold". What I found
particularly interesting about this was that this was Buddy's way of talking
about his brother's suicide, and all of that made me think. I'm not saying
that Seymour killed himself in order to let his brothers "unlearn the
differences, the illusory differences, between" life and death, but it seems
to me that he nonetheless thought, while doing it and regardless of the
reasons why he was doing it, that there was indeed no real difference
between life and death. He had that clear in his mind IMHO while he was
killing himself.
Maybe I'm completely wrong, I don't know. I was looking at his suicide note,
the haiku he left there: "The little girl on the plane/ Who turned her
doll's head around/ To look at me". I never got this poem, really. Could it
have something to do with the above? I have no idea.
Said that, I should send this and swim away... :-)
Tania
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