Hannadige 1 Shan Hannadige Mr. Jere Mendelsohn AP English Literature 2 December 2014 Short Story Literary Analysis In the short stories A Perfect Day for Bananafish by J.D. Salinger, A&P by John Updike, and The Fix by Percival Everett, each author uses a variety of literary devices such as imagery, metaphors, parallelism, symbolism, and tone to develop the plot and characters while exploring several themes of Modernism/Post-Modernism, including the search for individual place in a vast universe and the search for ways to deal with absurdities and complexities of life. In A Perfect Day for Bananafish, J.D. Salinger uses symbolism and tone to develop the plot and characters while expanding on the Modernist theme of search for ways to deal with the absurdities and complexities of life. When in the water, Seymour Glass tells the story about the bananafish to Sybil. He describes, Well, they swim into a hole where there s a lot of bananas. They re very ordinary-looking fish when they swim in. But once they get in, they behave like pigs (Salinger 16). The bananafish serves as symbolism to represent a few things. First off, the story of the fish is a reflection of Seymour s life after the war: the bananas symbolize the materialism of society after the war, and Seymour is a bananafish who has contracted banana fever (Salinger 16) and fallen victim to being rapidly exposed to such a revolutionized and confusing society after returning from such a brutal war. Additionally, the story conveys Seymour s loss of innocence: he gives an innocent and playful story to Sybil about the bananafish that don t even exist, but he is only using it to represent his unrest with society and his mental condition after the war. This symbolism is important because it connects Seymour s
Hannadige 2 loss of innocence to his persistence in dealing with the absurdities of life. Seymour gives this innocent story to Sybil, a young girl who he knows is not yet consumed by the materialistic society around them. He realizes through his experience with Sybil that there is no way for him to deal with the absurdities of the new world he has just entered because his mind is stuck in the violent war he just fought and his innocence was irretrievable, leading him to his suicide at the end of the story. There is a significant change in Seymour s tone throughout the story, primarily near the end. On the beach, Seymour has a happy, joyful, and relaxed tone, an example being when he says, Saw what, my love? My God, no! (Salinger 17). Later, in the elevator, his tone dramatically changes into being paranoid, angry, and cold, when he tells the other woman in the elevator, If you want to look at my feet, say so, But don t be a God-damned sneak about it (Salinger 17). The change in tone shows Seymour s state of mind around children versus around adults. He is more at ease around children because whatever mistakes they make can be excused by their immaturity and youthful nature. This especially applies to when Sybil claims, I just saw one [bananafish] (Salinger 17), as she is unaware that Seymour is symbolizing the fish for his brutal life. However, in the elevator, Seymour is reminded of the materialism and shallowness of the society of adults around him and causes him to go off on the woman next to him. The structural change in tone of the story is important as it connects Seymour s view of adults and children to his strive to deal with the absurdities of life and society. Seymour finds relaxation in being around children because he knows they are not manipulated by societal morals, but when he is around adults, he cannot find the same salvation. Their newly gained selfconceited and materialistic nature gives reason for their ignorance of Seymour s unstable state of mind. The symbolism and tone changes in A Perfect Day for Bananafish support the theme of search for ways to deal with the absurdities and complexities of life.
Hannadige 3 John Updike s A&P contains symbolism and imagery that develops the plot and the main character, Sammy, while exploring the Modernist theme of search for individual place in a vast universe. Throughout the story, Sammy s thoughts give way to describe the surrounding people, whom he calls sheep. He describes, The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle were pretty hilarious. You could see them kind of jerk, or hop, or hiccup, but their eyes snapped back to their own baskets (Updike 693). Sammy portrays the customers as a flock in which the people thoughtlessly follow the same protocol as everyone else, but in reality, they are preserving their own social norms. It is here where Sammy establishes himself as an unreliable narrator: to him, there is innocence and beauty in three girls in nothing but bathing suits (Updike 631) walking around a convenience store, but humor in the customers trying to maintain public conformity. The symbolism of the sheep is important because Sammy s desire to stay away from the average being gives way to his desire to have a better place in the world. By the end of the story, Sammy longs to be a savior of the girls when they are talked down by the manager Lengel, so he quits his job, knowing he is a sheep as well, and continues on with his dream of finding a better place in the hearts of the girls. Near the end of the story, Sammy and Lengel get into confrontation about the girls and about Sammy quitting: You ll feel this for the rest of your life, Lengel says, and I know that s true, too, but remembering how he made that pretty girl blush makes me so scrunchy inside I punch the No Sale tab and the machine whirs pee-pul and the drawer splats out (Updike 696). Sammy is reminded of the consequences of quitting his job, but because he s reminded of the embarrassment of the girls, he doesn t buy it, just as the imagery of the No Sale tab infers. This evidently shows Sammy as the rebellious character he is, whose rash decisions are run by confused emotions and unreliable thoughts. The use of imagery is important as it connects Sammy s character to his pursuance of a rightful place
Hannadige 4 in the world. Sammy won t buy into being a follower of the herd, as his emotions and thoughts drive him to quit his job and hopefully find a place in being a savior to the girls embarrassment. Symbolism and imagery in A&P help support the theme of search for individual place in a vast universe. In The Fix, Percival Everett utilizes parallelism and metaphors to develop the plot and the main character, Sherman Olney, while exploring the Modernist theme of search for individual place in a vast universe. As the story begins, Sherman hears the sound of Douglas Langley s run-down fridge in the diner. He says to Douglas, Your fridge. The compressor is bad I can fix it (Everett 122). While Douglas is staring at Sherman without words, Sherman asks, You want me to fix it? (Everett 122). Sherman is established as a loyal and consensual character, and after repairing the fridge, opens the story into his ability to fix just about everything. This ability weighs into the tragic end of the story, where Sherman and Douglas are stuck on a bridge surrounded by people on both sides, who all desperately want a fix of Sherman s power. Sherman is about to jump, as he looked down at the peaceful water below He looked at Douglas. Douglas nodded (Everett 134). By the end of the story, it is apparent that Sherman has become incapacitated to fix more, yet he still maintains his loyalty to gather consent from Douglas to jump. This parallelism is important to the story because Sherman s persistence to have some type of consent to fix can be credited to his confusion about his place in the world. He fixes because he can and because he s asked to, but his developed emptiness throughout the story shows Sherman s knowledge that his purpose isn t to fix everyone s problems away. Only while at the bridge and hearing the people of the city screaming at him to fix them does Sherman realize that his purpose is to get away from all of them (Everett 133). Towards the end of the story, Sherman explains to Douglas the consequences of
Hannadige 5 fixing things that he shouldn t: You have to be careful about what you fix If you irrigate a desert, you might empty a sea (Everett 133). Sherman then uses his alternate explanation as a metaphor of himself, emotionally stating, I am the empty sea (Everett 133). Sherman exposes his situation to Douglas: he is basically lifeless. His will to give off his power to fix certain things is voluntary and with consent. When everyone wants him to fix everything, his power is basically extracted from him by human nature, just as an empty sea would be drained of water to irrigate a desert. This metaphor is important because it not only shows Sherman s drainage of life but also connects Sherman s emotions with his uncertainty of his purpose. Sherman expressing his emptiness with tear-filled eyes (Everett 134) proves he has finally realized from fixing appliances to personal problems and even fatalities that his purpose is to not fix everyone s problems, as it only leads him to be milked like a cow to ease the lives of everyone else. This ends up leaving Sherman with dubiety of his place in the world until the end of the story. The use of parallelism and metaphors in The Fix develop Sherman s character and actions while strongly supporting the theme of search for individual place in the universe. JD Salinger, John Updike, and Percival Everett utilize various literary devices in the short stories A Perfect Day for Bananafish, A&P, and The Fix to explore the Modernist/Post- Modernist themes of search for individual place and search for ways to deal with the absurdities and complexities of life. The authors wrote these stories to not only advocate the importance of the themes during the time the stories were written, but to explore them through the use of rhetorical devices that make the stories into works of wondrous literature.
Works Cited Everett, Percival. "The Fix." The Best American Short Stories. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. 121-134. Print. Salinger, Jerome David. "A Perfect Day for Bananafish." Nine Stories. Boston: Little, Brown, 1953. 7-18. Print. Updike, John. "A&P." The Bedford Introduction To Literature. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin, 1961. 692-696. Print.