Author's Note: This is my response to J.D. Salinger's short story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish". My response is about how you have to live with who you are. There is no turning back from horrible events such as a war, which I believe is what Salinger is referring to. He was in the war, and had to deal with the fact that he could not return to his innocence. I am attempting to explain his thought on this, and my thought on this as well.
Experience is a stage that is inescapable for every human being, no matter how hard someone tries. Obviously death would avoid this phase, yet otherwise there is no direction opposite of experience. In the short story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, the tale about the life of Bananafish told by a character named Seymour was symbolic to a person after war. One could fit together the puzzle pieces that Seymour Glass is represented as the Bananafish. Times will exist that will bring regret and sorrow to people, yet there is no direction away from experience and must be headed towards it.
In J.D. Salinger’s short story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, Seymour Glass told a little girl about a story of Bananafish. In his tale, he explained how these fish would swim through a narrow hole, unaware of anything except the bananas that stood in front of them. Quickly they would eat the bananas, and while on their trip back out of the hole, they would not fit through and eventually die. Ironically, after Seymour finished telling the girl about this story, he made his way to his room and committed suicide. I believe that the author is using the Bananafish story as a metaphor of life, especially war, for once we have gone through an event such as war there is no escape from the horrific thoughts brought upon by it. J.D. Salinger is a post World War Two writer and a veteran, and in many of his novels and stories he presents the notion that there is no ticket to innocence.
A major part of life is exemplified by Salinger in “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, for he claims that life is meant to be looked at in a forwards view. Going into a war and coming out completely brutalized mentally and even physically would cause a lot of trauma in the mind. It is likely that one would want to turn towards innocence and never seek to advance down the road to experience. Unfortunately, a travel like this comparable to time-traveling, and would be physically impossible. Life needs to be lived as one can, and even through tough times like a war innocence cannot be returned to.
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