Re: 9 stories-eskimos

Pasha Paterson (gpaterso@richmond.edu)
Sun, 01 Nov 1998 22:09:19 -0500

I am SOOOO far behind in reading this list!!!!!!! sorry!

I must admit the comments on this list are the first time I've ever heard
the notion of Franklin being gay seriously entertained.  I thought Eric's
homosexuality was "tastefully done" (to quote the ESPN ad) and neither
too obvious nor too demeaning.  However, I saw it as more a reason for
Eric to be disqualified from the draft than a reason for Franklin to be
friends with him.  I can't see Franklin being gay.

The reason I only quote Paul's comment here is that it is closest to my
conception of the original puzzle: the chicken sandwich and the last line
of the story.  In the summer school class I co-taught this past summer we
conceived a generalized notion of "catchers" based on Holden's dream in
TCIR.  A "catcher" in a Salinger story would be any character who to some
extent saves/reawakens/restores/begins the protagonist's progress towards
spiritual enlightenment.  We termed this enlightenment "innocence"
(sometimes with a capital I) and thus the protagonist as the "innocent"
of the story.

Our reading of "Eskimos" was that Ginnie was the troubled innocent, who
walked a thin line between childish honesty (preferred) and adult
phoniness (itself a subject of some debate).  Paul put his finger on our
reading of Franklin's character: as his name might suggest, he is absolutely
sincere -- "frank" -- with everyone, especially Ginnie.  Franklin is the
catcher for this story, in that his undying honesty and near childishness
has the same strangely comforting, strangely awakening influence on Ginnie
that Esme's and Charles's have on X.  Further, Ginnie sees Franklin's
charitable gesture as an act of innocence, not unlike Esme's donation of her
father's watch or Phoebe packing up her belongings and trying to catch up
to Holden.  Taken together, these points would explain the reference to the
Easter chick: Ginnie sees both Franklin's gift and the dead Easter chick as
reminders of purity of innocence.  Maybe not in such overdeveloped terms,
but still...

To try to put it simply, the chick reminds Ginnie of Franklin's childishly
innocent gift-giving gesture.

Hope I've been more helpful than confusing.
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At 17:19 11/01/98 -0500, Paul Janse wrote:
>I am always struck by Franklin's absolute sincerity: he absolutely doesn't
>mind expressing his opinion of Ginnie's sister in front of her, nor is he
>ashamed of his fear of pain for iodine. Maybe Ginnie respects this trait of
>Franklin's as well. 

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 G.H.G.A.Paterson  (804)662-3737  gpaterso@richmond.edu
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