Salinger's For Esmé: With Love And Squalor

“For Esmé – With Love and Squalor” is a story of redemption by love in which Salinger is debating the nature of life, love, and suffering. In the first half of the story, Sergeant X encounters Esmé in an English tea room and the seeds of love and sincerity between two lonely people are sown. In the second half of the story is about squalor in which Sergeant X is deployed to Germany and suffers the trauma of war. Esmé represents the power or redemptive love while Sergeant X represents the destructive effects of war. Because the trauma of war affects Sergeant X mentally and physically, sincere love proves to be the only force able to relieve him of his suffering.

The trauma of war is so great that the only force able to heal the narrator, Sergeant

Also, Esmé is able to relate to the loneliness that the narrator expresses because they have both experienced loss. Esmé’s loss of her parents speaks to the narrator’s loss of humanity (Blackstock). The meeting between Esmé and the narrator allows for the narrator to eventually regain some sense of mental stability. One way Salinger shows the deteriorating mental state of the protagonist is by using shifting narrative point of view. The effect of using a third person limited point of view to write about himself stresses Sergeant X’s dislocation and loss of identity. The narrator distances himself from his humanity by distancing himself from his writing. His decision to refer to himself as Sergeant X is a way in which he communicates his alienation from other soldiers and those back home (Kerr 173-174). Kerr points out Sergeant X’s loss of identity by stating: “A man without a name and without the resolve to call himself “I” is nobody” (Kerr 174). Secondly, the conversation between Clay and Sergeant X reveals Sergeant X’s deteriorating mental state. Clay tells Sergeant X that his girlfriend, Loretta, believes Clay was temporarily insane for shooting a cat. Sergeant X’s response shows his loss of compassion and sanity: “That cat