Innocence and Conflict: comparing J.D. Salinger’s A Perfect Day for Bananafish, and Tim O’Brien’s How to Tell A True War Story When reading the short stories A Perfect Day for Bananafish by J.D. Salinger, and How to Tell A True War Story by Tim O’Brien, one is at first taken with their very unique styles of writing. Although each author’s style differs due to being from distinct eras within literature, the modern and postmodern respectively; we see a commonality that ties them together in that each describes situations that arise from traumatic experiences through conflict. As both stories feature protagonists who have encountered conflict as seen through war, we can perceive insights into its effects upon the mental state of these characters. …show more content…
Furthermore, each author reveals conflict in its various forms in their stories alongside subtle insinuations of contrasting innocence, thus highlighting the significance of conflict upon the respective characters.
Therefore through evaluating and comparing each author’s work we will see how each is utilizing this intermingling effect between conflict and innocence to reveal how the horrors of war can affect individuals mentally. To relate how the authors accomplish this effect we will observe how each utilizes specific devices such as scenarios and specific language to engage the reader into viewing a character as more than a construct but rather a multifaceted complex individual that has flaws and mental issues much like many of us. One such use of a contrast between conflict and innocence is seen through how the respective authors utilize children, as well as child like mannerisms and references, to project innocence about a troubled character. For example in Salinger’s “Bananafish”, we consistently see the protagonist Seymour Glass portrayed as someone who isn’t really mature even though his character has been through wartime conflict. Even prior to introducing Seymour as a character Salinger addresses him through an …show more content…
introductory conversation between his wife Muriel and his mother-in-law, “When I think of how you waited for that boy all through the war…” (9). The specific use of the word “boy” shows us that Salinger wants us to consider Seymour much like a child, both immature and innocent; all the while insinuating that Seymour has undergone a traumatic experience in the war “…he said it was a perfect crime the Army released him from the hospital…” (Salinger, 6). In fact Seymour is referenced as a willful character who’s actions as described by insinuations of dark scenarios are more akin to childlike tantrums, “Did he try any of that funny business with the trees?”(Salinger, 5), “ The Trees. That business with the window. Those horrible things he said to Granny…What he did with all those lovely pictures from Bermuda…”(6). When Salinger finally introduces us to the character Seymour we already have a mental image of some youthful persona, but find ourselves further taken aback when faced with his mannerisms with the child figure Sybil. Seymour’s interactions with Sybil are verbally on par with what one would expect with a conversation between youthful children, contrasting the obviously troubled and mature Seymour, “Olives – yes. Olives and wax. I never go anyplace without ‘em” (Salinger, 15). Salinger obviously wants us to see this comparison of Seymour to a child to highlight the internal conflict that this character is undergoing, and to thus contemplate what effect the war has had upon him. O’Brien’s “War Story” also takes the same sort of approach to utilizing a contrast between youthful innocence and conflict but in a slightly different manner.
Intermingled within O’Brien’s metafictional story regarding Lemon’s death, we see how the characters Rat and Lemon are referred to as being almost childlike and thus innocent, “They were kids; they just didn’t know. A nature hike, they thought, not even a war…”(77). The specific word use of “kids”, much like Salinger’s intentional use of referencing Seymour as a “boy”, allows us to see the characters as something other than soldiers, something more innocent within the intermingled descriptions of war and death. O’Brien also specifically uses descriptions of many activities more associated with ones childhood such as seen with the soldiers using yo-yo’s, playing catch ” Curt Lemon and Rat Kiley were playing catch with smoke grenades. Mitchell Sanders sat flipping his yo-yo.”(78), or even going trick-or-treating on Halloween, “”hikes over to the ville and goes trick-or-treating almost stark naked…”(76). The specific use of the wording and activities show that O’Brien initially doesn’t want us to see the soldiers as just machines of war, but rather as characters that have an innocence about them that contrasts the harshness and stress of war. As one can see the innocence projected about the respective characters in each story is essential to the authors attempt at creating an internal dynamic within his characters, and
through this an attempt at an emotional bond with the reader when we see that the innocence is lost. Innocence lost is a crucial factor that each story encompasses, and is shown through the casualness about death that each author portrays. Both stories contain at least one scene of abrupt violence that signifies innocence lost, with notable incidences being Kurt Lemon’s death in O’Brien’s “War Story”, and Seymour killing himself in Salinger’s “Bananafish”. The incidences of death within both stories contrast the innocence that the authors initially impress upon these characters, grabbing the attention of the reader when their sudden demise occurs, as what is more abrupt and sorrowful that the figurative death of an innocent child. For instance Lemon’s death is crucial to O’Brien’s storyline as it signifies the end of innocence for the character Rat Kiley as well as the narrator, “I can still see the sunlight on Lemon’s face…then he laughed and took that curious half step from shade into sunlight…he must’ve thought it was the sunlight killing him.” (90). The use of this specific description detailing a transition of dark to light in Lemon’s death is also significant when considering the sudden change that the character Rat Kiley undergoes mentally. From at first being described as an innocent youth to suddenly lashing out at the world around him, O’Brien creates a realistic view of a character that becomes full of pain and angst. Salinger’s use of abrupt death is much the same as O’Brien’s, but the sudden transition for his character signifying that Seymour has lost his innocence is more veiled. Initially Salinger provides evidence of Seymour being mentally unbalanced with many excerpts foreshadowing the events to come, “…theres a chance-a very great chance, he said-that Seymour may completely lose control of himself.” (Salinger, 6). However, the transition point in Salinger’s story comes when Seymour perceives his companion Sybil’s sudden loss of innocence when seeing the metaphorical bananafish, and thus reminding Seymour of his past trauma. Salinger reveals this change in Seymour when stating “The young man suddenly picked up one of Sybil’s wet feet…and kissed the arch.” The use of the word “suddenly” obviously signifies the transition point in Seymour, where he becomes obsessed with feet and what they seem to signify in his mind; that being most likely the loss of limbs and life within the conflict of war. Although the truth regarding Sybil and as to what the significance of the aforementioned feet and tale of the bananafish represent within the story are up for debate, the fact remains that these are key to Seymour’s transition to losing his innocence. Seymour lets on that he has changed when being profane in the elevator obsessing about his feet, leading us to accept that a change has taken place, “If you want to look at my feet, say so…But don’t be a God-damned sneak about it.” (Salinger, 17). Salinger’s final description encompassing Seymour’s death, “He glanced at the girl lying asleep on one of the twin beds…looked at the girl, aimed the pistol, and fired a bullet through his right temple.” (18), shows a casualness with which Seymour goes about the task, as if this scene was something Seymour had prepared mentally for some time. Salinger almost leaves us with an impression that instead of killing a troubled man he is instead killing an innocent child, which is compounded by the fact that Seymour sees his wife as a “girl”, who is thus inherently still innocent. Yet another aspect of the authors’ use of contrasting conflict with innocence is seen by both stories depicting scenes of cruelty against animals. For instance O’Brien reveals a grim scenario involving the soldiers showing abject cruelty against a water buffalo. There the character Rat Kiley shows an indifference to the suffering of an innocent animal, using it as an outlet for his internal pain through inflicting violence upon it. At first Rat shows kindness towards the animal, but then is the harbinger of its misery, “After supper Rat Kiley went over and stroked its nose….Rat shrugged. He stepped back and shot it through the right knee…It wasn’t to kill; it was to hurt.” (O’Brien, 85). O’Brien is utilizing the water buffalo to reveal an end of innocence within the character Rat and reveal the initial signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). O’Brien is also using the water buffalo excerpt to shock the reader into really contemplating what the character is going through by the sudden transition from a state of innocence to one that is a polar opposite. Salinger on the other hand uses the described cruelty against an animal to highlight how the character Seymour still has an innocent air about him, even through the mental turmoil that he is obviously suffering from. Salinger shows that although Seymour may have changed mentally through his wartime trauma yet he still sees the distinct difference between right and wrong, “What I like particularly about her is that she never does anything mean to little dogs in the lobby of the hotel…some little girls like to poke that little dog with balloon sticks…She’s never mean or unkind. That’s why I like her so much.” (15). Although the extent of the cruelty differs between the two stories the effect remains the same, which is to showcase how the characters perceive the world around them and how their respective conflicts can blur the line between right and wrong. Interestingly it seems evil when men are doing it but when little girls do it it’s almost all right, but isn’t it the same nevertheless? The cruelty that the men show in O’Brien’s short story may be greater by the casualness of it all, but it's still just the same as a child pulling the legs off a spider, or poking a dog with a stick. In a way the authors are both being understandably condescending, as they know that most people who read their stories likely won’t know the true horrors of war, and to what depths that the human mind can sink to. Both Salinger’s “Bananafish”, and the metafictional “War Story” of O’Brien’s, attempt to make people more conscious of the possible effects that wartime conflict can have on people. O’Brien constantly reminds us to be aware asking “what’s the point?”(89) “what’s the moral?”(84), so that when we read his story we might try to understand the mental trauma that the characters have undergone in their conflict, as society for the most consists of, “people who never listen.” (91). The use of contrasting innocence with conflict allows both authors to highlight the fact that there is more to wartime conflict that what society perceives, but unfortunately society for the most part acts much like how adults ignore tales from children, saying something like “that’s nice dear, now run along and play”.
Kurt Vonnegut, a modern American writer, composed stories about fictional situations that occurred in futuristic versions of today’s world. His stories included violence, both upon oneself and one another, and characters who sought out revenge. In “2BR02B” and “Harrison Bergeron”, Vonnegut conveys physical violence most likely experienced while a prisoner of World War 2, as a way to show how war brings pain and destruction.
As with any genre, all novels termed ‘war stories’ share certain elements in common. The place and time settings of the novels, obviously, take in at least some aspect of at least one war or conflict. The characters tend to either be soldiers or are at least immediately affected by the military. An ever present sense of doom with punctuated moments of peace is almost a standard of the war novel. Beyond the basic similarities, however, each of these battle books stands apart as an individual. Charles Yale Harrison’s World War I novel, Generals Die in Bed is, in essence, quite different than Colin McDougall’s Execution. Coming years earlier, Generals can almost be seen to hold the wisdom one would expect see in an older sibling, while Execution suffers the growing pains that the younger child inevitably feels.
...it may help us arrive at an understanding of the war situation through the eyes of what were those of an innocent child. It is almost unique in the sense that this was perhaps the first time that a child soldier has been able to directly give literary voice to one of the most distressing phenomena of the late 20th century: the rise of the child-killer. While the book does give a glimpse of the war situation, the story should be taken with a grain of salt.
Many times readers lose interest in stories that they feel are not authentic. In addition, readers feel that fictitious novels and stories are for children and lack depth. Tim O’ Brien maintains that keeping readers of fiction entertained is a most daunting task, “The problem with unsuccessful stories is usually simple: they are boring, a consequence of the failure of imagination- to vividly imagine and to vividly render extraordinary human events, or sequences of events, is the hard-lifting, heavy-duty, day-by-day, unending labor of a fiction writer” (Tim O’ Brien 623). Tim O’ Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” examines the correlation between the real experiences of war and the art of storytelling. In O’Brien’s attempt to bridge the gap between fiction and non-fiction, the narrator of the story uses language and acts of violence that may be offensive to some.
O’Brien, Tim. “How To Tell a True War Story.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2003. p. 420-429.
War always seems to have no end. A war between countries can cross the world, whether it is considered a world war or not. No one can be saved from the reaches of a violent war, not even those locked in a safe haven. War looms over all who recognize it. For some, knowing the war will be their future provides a reason for living, but for others the war represents the snatching of their lives without their consent. Every reaction to war in A Separate Peace is different, as in life. In the novel, about boys coming of age during World War II, John Knowles uses character development, negative diction, and setting to argue that war forever changes the way we see the world and forces us to mature rapidly.
O’Brien, Tim. “How To Tell a True War Story.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2003. p. 420-429.
during the war. This novel is able to portray the overwhelming effects and power war has
In the short story “Chickamauga”, the author Ambrose Bierce uses a young boy to connect to his audience with what is the disillusions of war, then leads them into the actuality and brutalities of war. Bierce uses a six year old boy as his instrument to relate to his readers the spirits of men going into combat, then transferring them into the actual terrors of war.
... Vonnegut’s writing is unique because “the narrator offers a very different kind of war story—one which combines fact and fiction” (Jarvis 98). With the combination of fact and fiction, Vonnegut successfully connected events from WWII to the political references and societal conflicts during the Vietnam War. Works Cited Barringer, Mark, and Tom Wells. “The Anti-War Movement in the United States.”
...rtist and just like any artist O’Brien wants to change your mind. He wants you to see the world the way he sees the world. This is his intent to have the reader believe that this collection of memories, feelings, and actions is actually real and in some parts of the story he has the reader believing that they themselves were once a solider in the Vietnam War. Life itself is a lot like how O’Brien describes war. He says “War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is drudgery. War makes you a man; makes you dead” (O’Brien 76). Any well written novel will intrigue a reader because when an author is able to bend in emotions of a real life event with a fictional standpoint of things a story has been written.
As Irving Howe once observed, “The knowledge that makes us cherish innocence makes innocence unattainable.” In a dynamic society, innocence evades even the youngest members of our world; it evades even the nonexistent members of our world. J.D. Salinger explores this elusive innocence in his short story, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish." Distinct similarities appear between the main character, Seymour Glass, and Salinger including the World War II experience and attraction for younger, more innocent people (Salerno). Salinger conveys this through Seymour’s preference of a young girl’s company over his own wife's company. Throughout the story, “Salinger constantly draws attention to himself and his precocious intellect” (Daniel Moran). “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” revolves around an army veteran post-World War II who visits a beach resort with his wife but spends more time there with the young Sybil Carpenter. Using a historical context of World War II and portrayal of many different characters, Salinger effectively depicts the story of a man in a desperate search for innocence. In “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” J.D. Salinger uses symbolism and figurative language to stress the concept of unattainable innocence.
The two classic war novels ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ by Erich Maria Remarque and ‘Catch 22’ by Joseph Heller both provide a graphic insight into the life of soldiers serving their country in the historic world wars. One distinct theme of interest found in both books, is the way in which war has physically and mentally re-shaped the characters. Remarque creates the character Paul Baümer, a young soldier who exposes anxiety and PTSD (commonly known as Shellshock) through his accounts of WW1’s German army. ‘Catch 22’ however, is written in the third person and omnisciently explores insanity and bureaucracy in an American Bombardier Squadron through its utter lack of logic. The two novels use their structure, characters, symbolism and setting to make a spectacle of the way war re-shapes the soldiers.
From sunrise to sunset, day after day, war demolishes men, cities, and hope. War has an effect on soldiers like nothing else, and sticks with them for life. The damage to a generation of men on both sides of the war was inestimable. Both the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, and the poem “I Have a Rendezvous with Death,” by Alan Seeger, demonstrate the theme of a lost generation of men, mentally and physically, in war through diction, repetition, and personification.
The way the characters change emphasises the effect of war on the body and the mind. The things the boys have to do in the act of war and “the things men did or felt they had to do” 24 conflict with their morals burning the meaning of their morals with the duties they to carry out blindly. The war tears away the young’s innocence, “where a boy in a man 's body is forced to become an adult” before he is ready; with abrupt definiteness that no one could even comprehend and to fully recover from that is impossible. The story is riddled with death; all of the dead he’s has seen: Linda, Ted Lavender, Kiowa, Curt Lemon, the man he killed, and all the others without names.