Sanity and Social Norms
Throughout “A Perfect Day For Bananafish,” young World War II veteran Seymour Glass is implied to be insane. While he and his wife, Muriel, are on vacation at a Florida resort, his behavior is erratic and possibly dangerous: Seymour is paranoid that others are looking at him, he behaves inappropriately with a young girl on the beach, and he ultimately shoots himself in the head in his hotel room. While this seems to affirm…
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Wealth and Materialism
“A Perfect Day for Bananafish” is set at a dazzling resort along the Florida coast where upper-class guests luxuriate and indulge. Everyone is surrounded by decadent things like calfskin leather, designer clothes, silks, and fashion magazines, suggesting that the resort and its patrons are the very embodiment of upper-class refinement. But for Seymour, who has recently returned from fighting in World War II, the resort is a hellish place, brimming with shallow people who…
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Communication and Isolation
In “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” everyone seems isolated from one another—especially Seymour, who appears to deliberately isolate himself by playing the piano at night and going to the beach alone. For other characters, conversations and even intimate interactions are marked by a sense of alienation and disconnect, sometimes because people refuse to empathize with one another and other times because they simply can’t understand someone else’s experiences (particularly Seymour’s traumatic experience of war)…
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Innocence and Violence
In “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” innocence and violence often go hand and hand. Having just returned from the trauma and violence of World War II, Seymour seems to want to access his prewar innocence through playing with children, reveling in their playfulness, imagination, and naivety. However, no matter how much Seymour plays with children, he cannot return to his prewar state. For one, the story’s children are not entirely innocent (they themselves can be…
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