A Perfect Day for Bananafish

World War II had a profound effect on everyone who risked their lives for their country. The soldiers who were fortunate enough to make it out alive were often scarred for life and dealt with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Post-war America and the experiences that the soldiers suffered during WWII were so disconnected from each other that many veterans could no longer fit in with society. When America’s troops came home, the country had changed dramatically as it had developed into a consumerist society. In J.D Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” Seymour Glass is a war veteran who is dealing with PTSD. His experiences in the war changed him forever, and he could no longer fit in with the consumerist America. Seymour Glass tells the story of the bananafish to a young girl named Sybil Carpenter. He says that “[bananafish] swim into a hole where there’s a lot of bananas. They’re very ordinary-looking fish when they swim in. But once they get in, they behave like pigs. Why, I’ve known some bananafish to swim into a banana hole and eat as many as seventy-eight bananas. Naturally, after that they’re so fat they can’t get out of the hole again” (p. 16). When Seymour Glass tells the story of the bananafish to young Sybil, he is actually describing his hatred for both the way the war changed him and how America changed while he was fighting for the country he used to know. Seymour Glass uses the story of the bananafish as a metaphor for the undeniable transformation he went through during the war and how he despises what the war did to him mentally. Seymour entered the war as an ordinary American, but came home a changed man dealing with PTSD after he witnessed the horrors of battle. Similarly, the bananafish entered the hole as normal fish, but were no longer able to fit back through the door after their experience in the banana hole. When Seymour was relieved of his duties in the war, his traumatizing experiences followed him back to America. He cannot