Re: 9 stories-eskimos
Mattis Fishman (mattis@argos.argoscomp.com)
Mon, 02 Nov 1998 10:34:55 -0500 (EST)
Pasha enlightned us with (among other things, of course):
> ... 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...
Dear Pasha,
Thank you very much for this rosetta stone. It resonates
with reason, insight, and the sound of one hand clapping.
all the best,
Mattis