Re: From Daumier to Smith

Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@hotpop.com)
Sun, 19 Sep 1999 14:45:01 +1000 

While looking through this CD Rom I have of various study notes I came
across the following for `De Daumier-Smith'. Guess old Charlotte Alexander
(any relation to the OTHER Alexander we've all been talking about???)
doesn't like the story any better than Jim does (: There is such an
emphasis on phonies in this interpretation that I feel I should reiterate
something I mentioned in an earlier De Daumier Smith discussion - that
there really was an artist named Daumier who worked in France around the
time of people like Tolouse-Lautrec and Degas. Originally he was a
caricaturist but later he became well known for his scenes of social
realism and truth. Which would all have an interesting bearing on the
story, huh? The more I think about it the more I could also interpret the
story as being connected to Salinger's pursuit of `the slicks' - DDS seems
to regard commercial art the same way S. regarded magazines - as a nasty
necessity. And Pasha! JDS = JDS, that's pure brilliance !!!!

Camille
verona_beach@hotpop.com

---------------

    (c) Monarch Notes on CD ROM - 1991 Bureau Development, Inc. Charlotte
Alexander, New York University.

"De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period"

     A flashback opens this sprawling story; it seems to attempt to make
several points: (1) Life is phony and at times utterly grotesque; (2) Joy
seems to be an emotion that can be captured only here and there,
momentarily:
(3) Everyone is essentially isolated. (The device of the flashback is not
as
effective as in "Esme" - where the evocation of the present is an
indication
of the narrator's present state of affairs, his rebirth which we see at the
story's end.)

The Narrator:

     The young man is a typical Salinger protagonist: nervously artistic,
compulsively involved in conflict with the crasser elements of the external
world, introverted and secretive, antisocial and happiest when in retreat
into
a fantasy world.

The Phony And The Grotesque:

     There are several indications that the narrator has had a growing
conviction of the phoniness of the world. In an engagingly adolescent way,
he too becomes a phony, but a refreshingly humorous phony, at that. In the
samples of commercial art that he submits to the art school, he is
satirically
aware of the lack of sincerity in that medium. Given such a disenchanted
view
of commercial America, one wonders if the narrator does not sense at the
outset that the Yoshotos are also phony.

     De Daumier-Smith is surrounded by hypocrites and phonies, particularly
some of his art students whom Salinger presents in a hilarious piece of
satirical writing. Only the nun seems to represent someone who is genuine.
The
young man, in a singularly funny, fumbling, somewhat pathetic manner,
attempts
to establish communication and fellowship with her, because he imagines her
as
his soulmate.

     The events in Canada are so satirically comic that they approach the
grotesque. The absurdities accumulate as the story progresses. The idea of
the
grotesque is epitomized in the orthopedic appliance shop where both of the
narrator's "epiphanies" occur, the second suggesting vaguely that the young
man has a moment of mystic insight.

Alienation:

     The hero feels alienated both in New York and in Canada. In New York,
he
becomes progressively alienated from the city's hustle and bustle and from
his
stepfather. In Canada, he seems to arrive at the conclusion that withdrawal
is
one solution to the grotesque and the phony life: everybody, it is implied,
is of necessity isolated (or at any rate, rate sensitive and imaginative
are
forced by the rest of the world into a nunlike existence).

     De Daumier's attraction to the nun is probably also an attraction to
her
isolation from the world's hostility in a haven safe from hypocrisy. He
creates fantasies about a pure relationship with Sister Irma, but even his
fantasy is shattered by the harsh world (Father Zimmermann).

Happiness And Joy:

     For the narrator, complete happiness is elusive, even impossible. He
indicates his malevolent view of the world and his chances of finding true
happiness there. The best the young man comes to hope for are fleeting
moments
of joy-especially those times when he can momentarily triumph over a
hostile
environment. De Daumier's moments of elation are sweet though short-lived.
His
personal satisfaction surely stems from his momentary refusal to adjust to
(and participate in) the hypocrisy of the world, as represented by the
completely phony art school.

Cynical Tolerance:

     We note, however, that after the narrator's experience at the
appliance
shop in the blinding, rising sun, he calmly writes letters to his four
expelled students. This gesture suggests a cynical tolerance of the phony
world, with one important difference-he is more "his own man" than at the
beginning of his Canadian experience. He recognizes better his own
capacities
for joy, however fleeting, and his ability to exercise control over the
external world.

     The reader realizes that the young man is just as repelled by his own
insincerity as by that in the external world. There is a suggestion that he
will fake reality less in the future himself, now that he has a glimpse of
the
meaning and consequences of phoniness.