Re: BANANAFISH digest 109

K. L. Leunissen (Leunissen@wt.tno.nl)
Thu, 25 Sep 1997 15:15:02 +0200 

>> We on the list have discussed Seymour's suicide many times, but perhaps we
>> could reinvigorate that discussion by looking at it in terms of this "dying
>> of the light" discussion.  Seymour was obviously not apathetic to life, but
>> was he perhaps troubled by his life of marriage, which he found "too happy",
>> that perhaps that life offered only a kind of stagnancy, a beatified
>>normalcy that drowned his spiritual vigour for life.

About Seymour's suicide, when I read the Bananafish story I had the strong
feeling that Seymour wasn't happy and certainly not too happy, as George
suggested in the previous digest as I believe does Paul later on (that he
would be at the height of his happiness). Even during the fragments in the
book that he was seemingly happy, at the beach, or playing the piano, I felt
there was an emotional detachment about him, where he doesn't want to get
too involved in other people. 

He wraps himself up in his bathrobe on the beach, only seems willing to talk
to the children in the story and even then does't seem to experience very
many emotions. The only (first hand) emotions that surface are when he gets
into the elevator, at which point he reminded me of Holden, telling the
woman in the lift that she should admit that she was looking at his feet.

As for his wife, I don't really feel so sorry for her. I know it's horrible,
waking up and seeing your husband's head blown away, but after the initial
shock at the horror of what happened, I think she could get her life back
together again pretty easily, go back to her parents, concentrate on what
kind of dress to wear to the funeral, what kind of food to serve, etc. She's
not intertwined with Seymour's soul, she wouldn't fall apart when she
realizes what's happened, she wouldn't want to die herself. 

Perhaps that's why he chose to do it there, he knew she could take it, and
that it would somehow be easier to wake up and find him gone and realize
that he was gone, as the sight of him would convince her quicker than any
narrated version of the suicide. It would also get her the attention that
she would need to get over it, people rushing to their bedroom, trying to
comfort her, somebody phoning her parents, her parents coming immediately.

Karen