Teddy, reincarnation
cinnimon@vvm.com
Wed, 04 Nov 1998 01:52:01 +0000
I know this subject has pretty much ceased to exist, but I just wanted to put my bit
in before it was *too* late.
I have recently finnisihed _Teddy_ and while I first came to the conclusion that it
was Teddy that was pushed in the pool, I've since changed my mind. In the last
paragraph of the story, as stated in a previous post by another list member, Salinger
truly does go 'out of his way' to describe the voice as an "all-piercing, sustained
scream--clearly coming from a small, female child." Yes, it is also true that small
boys voices are quite a bit more high pitched than those of men, I doubt that Salinger
was implying it was Teddy's voice.
The paragraph goes on to expain how the scream was "reverberating within the four
tiled walls," thus suggesting that (since the ship does not have tiled walls), the
scream is coming from within the empty pool.
One final note...around the middle of the story, Teddy reminds Booper that she has a
swimming lesson on the E deck; however, there is no E deck. In the end of the story
Teddy goes from the A deck down to the D deck-someone a few days ago suggested that
the E deck was actually the pool, or bottom of the pool, in itself. I know this
sounds odd, but I was just wondering how everyone else takes this. Could this
possibly be forshaddowing of Booper's death?
Sarah