Franny and Zooey Character Analysis of Franny
Gökçe Ayşen Akpınar
05.11.2012
Is Love for Yourself Possible? In J.D. Salinger’s book “Franny and Zooey”, the character Franny is a 20-year-old college girl who comes from a very loving and intellectual family. She has a boyfriend who is handsome and in love with her. Moreover, she used to act in a TV show named “It’s a Wild Child” with her siblings when she was a child. To put it in a nutshell, it can be thought that she is supposed to be a very happy young lady; however, she is not. Actually, Franny has lots of reasons not to be happy with her life. When we look at the very beginning of the ‘Franny’ section, we see some gestures and mimics of Franny indicating that the relationship between her and Lane is based on appearances: “’I’ve missed you.’ The words were no sooner out than she realized that she didn’t mean them at all. Again with guilt, she took Lane’s hand and tightly, warmly laced fingers with him.” In this quotation, we see that Franny emphasizes the word ‘missed’ on purpose as if she wants to force herself to believe that she really missed him. The next sentence also supports this. She doesn’t miss Lane, she says so only because those are the right words to say at that time. After realizing her own pretentious affection, she feels like these fake words are noticed by Lane and she holds Lane’s hand tightly to cover this pretentious act. Another quotation that depicts Franny’s before-breakdown condition is when Lane tells Franny that she is perspiring a little and Franny tries to find her Kleenex branded tissues in her bag: “Franny brought her handbag up to table level, opened it, and began to rummage through it. ‘I have some Kleenex somewhere.’… Her handbag was a crowded one. To see better, she began to unload a few things and place them on the tablecloth, just to the left of her untasted sandwich.” When we look at her actions in this quotation, firstly we realise that she does not ‘look for’ the tissues, she ‘rummages
05.11.2012
Is Love for Yourself Possible? In J.D. Salinger’s book “Franny and Zooey”, the character Franny is a 20-year-old college girl who comes from a very loving and intellectual family. She has a boyfriend who is handsome and in love with her. Moreover, she used to act in a TV show named “It’s a Wild Child” with her siblings when she was a child. To put it in a nutshell, it can be thought that she is supposed to be a very happy young lady; however, she is not. Actually, Franny has lots of reasons not to be happy with her life. When we look at the very beginning of the ‘Franny’ section, we see some gestures and mimics of Franny indicating that the relationship between her and Lane is based on appearances: “’I’ve missed you.’ The words were no sooner out than she realized that she didn’t mean them at all. Again with guilt, she took Lane’s hand and tightly, warmly laced fingers with him.” In this quotation, we see that Franny emphasizes the word ‘missed’ on purpose as if she wants to force herself to believe that she really missed him. The next sentence also supports this. She doesn’t miss Lane, she says so only because those are the right words to say at that time. After realizing her own pretentious affection, she feels like these fake words are noticed by Lane and she holds Lane’s hand tightly to cover this pretentious act. Another quotation that depicts Franny’s before-breakdown condition is when Lane tells Franny that she is perspiring a little and Franny tries to find her Kleenex branded tissues in her bag: “Franny brought her handbag up to table level, opened it, and began to rummage through it. ‘I have some Kleenex somewhere.’… Her handbag was a crowded one. To see better, she began to unload a few things and place them on the tablecloth, just to the left of her untasted sandwich.” When we look at her actions in this quotation, firstly we realise that she does not ‘look for’ the tissues, she ‘rummages