A Perfect Day For Bananafish Essay

The short story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J.D Salinger is about Seymour Glass, who has come back from World War II, and tries to associate with people in society. Still, he finds that interacting with a young child is easier as she is the only person that go along well due to mental illness from the war. So, Seymour makes a conversation with Sybil, an innocent young girl that knows nothing about the war. In the passage, J.D Salinger uses a symbolism of bananafish to indicate how Seymour expresses his pain of Post-Traumatic disease by stating himself the bananafish to Sybil and the author uses Seymour’s abnormal action towards Sybil to represent how Seymour’s loss of innocence from war affects his ability to associate.
The author’s

In the beach during the conversation, a young girl Sybil acts playful as “her scream was full of pleasure” after the wave went past her showing no emotional correlation with Seymour’s sorrow experience. After the conversation about a bananafish, “The young man suddenly picked up one of Sybil’s wet feet, which were drooping over the end of the float, and kissed the arch.” The author shows how Seymour lifts up and kisses Sybil’s feet without hesitation. The demonstration of his sudden action shows how desperate he wants to retrieve his innocence back. Also, author’s use of Sybil as an innocent character displays how she is able to attract Seymour, who urges bringing back his innocence lost from the war. As Seymour is a survivor from the war with loss of innocence due to visualization of vigorous violence, Seymour has lost his innocence. Then, his inability to associate with others leads him to talk to Sybil, who is innocent and differs from other adults in the world Seymour lives in. Therefore, he wants to recover his innocence by contacting with Sybil without hesitation.
Seymour’s actions of recovering his innocence shows how he desperately wants it and the symbolism of bananafish demonstrates how Seymour expresses his idea differently to Sybil. In short story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” is about Seymour Glass trying to associate with society but all he could do is to