A Perfect Day For Bananafish Essay

The central idea of the book Nine Stories that I would like to write about is the idea that the people in these stories are good people going through hard times and are having trouble dealing with life. In looking at all the characters in each story, they all relate to each other the sense that they are good people, leading the average normal life with families and jobs or schooling but they are each going through personal struggles that life is offering them and they are having trouble dealing with it. In some cases, the character in the story fails to realize that they are struggling, however their actions lead the reader to believe otherwise.

Two characters I believe are similar to one another are Seymour in "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"
and Seargeant X in "For Esme – With Love and Squalor". Both men are dealing with the difficult and devastating after effects of being in the war, and they realize how much their lives have changed and what the war has done to them mentally. Seymour is a young man in a state of unhappiness, based on the idea that he has already gone to see a psychiatrist and the incident with the car that was mentioned early on in the story. He is married to Muriel, who seems to be neglectful and makes light of the extremely delicate mental state that Seymour is in. As she's talking with her mother, you see the concern coming from her mother while Muriel pays little attention to her mother's concerns. Perhaps in every day life, Muriel brushes off Seymour, leaving him to feel an emptiness and void of companionship and conversation which he gets from Sybil. He forms a bond with Sybil which I feel is based on her innocence, her acceptance of him and the attention that she shows him, something which he is lacking at home. I believe that Seymour realizes his time with Sybil is coming to and end when she mentions that her father is coming in the next day. Unable to deal with the lonliness and loss of companionship, he took his life.

Sergeant X is the solider in "For Esme – With Love and Squalor who becomes mentally ill after the war. The man, X, meets Esme in a coffee shop just to the outskirts of a military base. X had previously noticed her in a church during a choir practice and seemed captivated by her. Later, when she meets him in the coffee shop she approaches him and begins talking to him. They have a casual yet deep conversation about their histories. X is extremely impressed with her large vocabulary that possibly exceeded his own. X notices the oversized manly watch that was around this small girl's wrist and learns that she lived a very difficult life when she replies solemnly looking at the wrist watch and explains that her deceased father had given it to her and that it had great sentimental value. They continue their brief conversation and before Esme leaves, they both promise to write each other and she wishes him well.

In this short story X writes Esme a story, he changes the tone of the and he tries to conceal his identity.
This shows that he chooses to hide his identity because he is ashamed of who has he become and it is a way of detaching himself in an attempt to forget or evade his past. He disguises himself X so no one will be able to figure out whom the story was about. During the war, X goes insane and he changes significantly from the beginning of the story. He suffers both physical and emotional effects from being in the war.. After the war ended X was tormented by many symptoms of post traumatic stress syndrome. He hasn't slept in weeks and it's told that just the tip of his tongue makes his gums bleed. He's distanced himself from his closest buddy who try to get him to go out, and he distances himself from his family as he tears up a letter he received from his brother. Just when the reader begins to think that X is going to be permanently mentally scarred, X receives notices an envelope among the stack of unopened letters. He opened the read the letter. It had been the first letter that was not selfish, impersonal, or cold. In fact, the letter was from Esme. The letter was so personal and caring, it was the only letter in the pile that showed any emotion at all. Also in the package, X found the enclosed watch that Esme had sent him. The crystal was broken but it was otherwise in tact. This seemed to bring comfort and peace of mind toX. He sat silently with the watch in
his hand for quite some time and then, suddenly almost ecstatically, he felt sleepy. The watch and letter from Esme gave X the comfort and calming that he needed, and gave him the sleep that he had been lacking for weeks. For the first time in a long time, X is at peace.