Subject: RE: An ocean full of bocce balls
From: Micaela (mbombard@middlebury.edu)
Date: Thu May 02 2002 - 19:24:02 EDT
I'm having a really rough night (papers galore) so I can't write too much.
I will say though, that I do not think that Seymour is far from
enlightenment, but he is relatively further than the other characters. In
"Uncle Wiggly" I would argue that the "main" character or focus is Ramona,
who is probably Walt's daughter, and therefore it could be said that he, too
is on an equal path to enlightenment as his daughter. She, like Walt, is a
kind of seer. Note that the name "Sybil" (as in Sybil of "Bananafish") is
in mythology a seer, a kind of profit. If you've ever read TS Eliot's
"Wasteland", you will note the epigraph about Sybils...Salinger was very
influenced by Eliot (in particular "Wasteland") and there are several lines
in "Bananafish" that are exact quotes from "Wasteland" if you look
carefully. Umm...I'm getting off the subject. Oh, so I think Seymour (as
Jim pointed out) is pretty much admitting or perhaps realizing that he is
like the bananafish, who, focused on his own desire, causes himself
suffering because he cannot transcend it. This focus on desire (the nature
of which I am unsure of...perhaps of girls??) leads him to his suicide. In
"Dinghy", Lionel is the one we are focused on. He is able to renounce
worldly/sentimental attachments and push away desires. An example of this
is that he throws the keys (which he asked for and wanted) into the
water...a symbol of his pushing away of desire. He also does this with
Seymour's goggles. The goggles are a symbol of Seymour as seer (there is a
large motif of glasses, nearsightedness, etc. running through the stories).
The goggles also symbolize a sentimental attachment, of which Lionel
dismisses by throwing them overboard. A similar gesture is seen in "Esme"
when she gives her father's watch away. It has sentimental value, but she
calls it a "memento". Her emotional detachment (the detachment that Teddy
later preaches) is seen by her father as her being "cold". Her tone
throughout the story is very distant, even when describing her father's
murder. She is close to achieving the state of realizing the illusion of
life and being able to distance herself from sentimentality, yet she is not
quite there. I could go on for hours and hours...but I have a shower to
jump into a paper to write. Two more weeks left. Thanks for showing
interest. More comments (this is fun).
-Micaela
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bananafish@roughdraft.org
[mailto:owner-bananafish@roughdraft.org]On Behalf Of Jim Rovira
Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 7:01 PM
To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
Subject: Re: An ocean full of bocce balls
Not sure exactly how it works out in Buddhism, but in the vedas I think
the lowest level is the level of interest in sheer physical pleasure.
Then family, then community, then transcendence. We're not discouraged
from fully entering into each of the levels -- heck, there's a whole
manual for sex :) -- but when we do we'll find that each one is lacking,
and we'll want to move on. I think I've read something similar in
buddhist literature, but it's been far too long for me to remember.
These categories are so broad, of course, that any character can be
placed into them without having to even make a connection between the
author and Eastern thought.
The feeling I get from Seymour is that he developed to a point, then his
development was halted because he became entangled in other things.
It's just too hard not to identify him with the Bananafish. Teddy talks
about this too -- when I first read Teddy, I thought he was a
reincarnation of Seymour, and was referring to a past life of his
(Teddy's) in some of his lines. Seems like when I mentioned that idea
years ago people here convincingly pointed out how problematic that idea
was, but don't remember the details.
Jim
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