Perfect Day For Bananafish

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An Evaluation of The Trauma on the Psyche from War from Seymour’s Perspective and An Analyzation of The Themes. ‘’A Perfect Day For Bananafish’’ by J. D. Salinger. A war scarred veteran comes back to his country after having served in either the European, African, or south pacific theatre in World War II in what must have been hell. He comes back, to what he perceives, a vapid and shallow society focused on fashion, T.V. gossip, and being socialites. He only seems to be able to connect with children as they are unaffected by being obsessed over such trivial, and superficial things. This is the story of Seymour as it is presented by J. D. Salinger in ‘’A Perfect Day For Bananafish’’ that mainly follows Seymour around as he spends his day on the beach in southern Florida. In this short story Seymour is clearly suffering from P.T.S.D. from his tour of duty in World War II and this is expanded upon many times in the story and as the majority of the story is from the perspective of Seymour this aspect of him is important in understanding Seymour’s perspective regarding his surrounding society. J. D. Salinger creates the themes of a war's effect on the psyche, the vapid nature of society, and the …show more content…

A tragic ending to a man suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and more than likely severe depression. Like the bananafish he too is unable to escape the hole that he found himself in. His wife nor anyone else really understood Seymour or what was going on his mind. The communication between his wife and him was basically nonexistent and this is also true between his wife, Muriel, and her mother as when they were both talking on the phone they were never really listening to one another. Seymour could not escape his own past and he did not get the help he needed and reflects very closely with real life veterans, veterans that were on the beaches of France during d day, veterans such as

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