RE: Seymour's death-- See better, Lear!

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Interesting! Some more data for your experiment: my first interpretation of
the glances at Muriel was that she embodied the reason Seymour killed
himself. I always assumed that was what Salinger meant for me to think. It
never occured to me that he might be trying (and failing) to pull a fast
one. 

-Sean


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matt Kozusko [mailto:mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 1998 1:23 PM
> To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
> Subject: Re: Seymour's death-- See better, Lear!
> 
> 
> Sean Draine wrote:
>  
> > Is it
> > conceivable that Salinger could have replaced the "his" 
> with a "her" in that
> > last sentence? This just wouldn't work with Salinger's 
> other stories.
> > However, if you've declared those other stories out of 
> bounds, then I
> > suppose it is conceivable.
> 
> They are, in a sense, "out of bounds," because Seymour's character
> clearly changes between '48 and the Glass saga.  Rather than outline 
> the idea again, I gesture, with a blush, to the post of a 
> week ago that 
> started this thread.
> 
> Then, with another splash of red and a curtsy, I re-post this, which 
> apparantly did not make it to the list, from Monday.  Re: Muriel 
> instead of Seymour:  
>   
> --
> I have fearlessly argued for this reading for years, but not many
> people--including my freshman English students, on whom I 
> have conducted
> several experiments designed especially for the purpose--buy it.  I
> think it's a failed suspense story.  You're supposed to think that
> Seymour is unstable and that he doesn't like his wife (or is
> disappointed in her, or whatever), and you're supposed to think he's
> going to shoot *her*.  Look at the meticulous wording of the final
> pargraph.  The gun is out, cocked and aimed before you find 
> out who gets
> the bullet.  Salinger even has Seymour glance at Muriel (suggesting a
> kind of "aiming") before he pulls the trigger.  When you discover that
> he actually shoots himself, you are to go back through the story and
> pick up, finally, on the fact that it is Seymour who is the 
> damned fish,
> and his intellectual greed that is the banana fever.  THe 
> materialsim of
> the western world is almost incidental--a piece of deception 
> designed to
> fuel the initial "meaning" of the story. 
> --
> 
> These experiments include whiting-out the final four words in 
> the story
> and replacing them with elipses in xeroxed copies.  I don't tell the
> students I've altered the ending, and we start class the next 
> day with a
> written response.  A good number--probably about half--of the 
> first-time
> readers have guessed that Seymour shoots his wife.  The half who think
> otherwise lead me to call the story "failed" in the sense that I think
> it clearly intends for us to envision Muriel as the victim, but since
> many of us do not, it doesn't quite achieve the desired result.  
> 
> I have not put much effort to date in creating "realistic" 
> ellipses, nor
> have I attempted to replace "his" with "her" before "right temple." 
> Perhaps a professional job done on the pronoun switch with no 
> mention of
> the alterations will turn up different results.  Next experiment (gee,
> Will--maybe I *can* get a dis out of this...) is scheduled for
> January...  
> 
> 
> -- 
> Matt Kozusko    mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu
> 

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