The Glass family thesis

Seymour, the oldest Glass child, has been a tremendous influence on the rest of his siblings. This factor is shown in the split stories of Franny and Zooey. In a letter Buddy writes to Zooey, he explains their reasoning for taking their youngest sibling’s education into their own hands. “The age differences in this family always seemed to add unnecessarily and perversely to our problems. Not really between S. and the twins and Boo Boo and me, but between the two twosomes of you and Franny and S. and me.” (Salinger 64) Buddy explains that he and Seymour wanted to make sure that their two youngest siblings were educated on the more abstract of teachings, before the more traditional. Zooey blames his older brothers for his critical and apathetic attitude towards others. He considers their teachings to be the main factor that lead him to a life without love. Buddy and Seymour’s fascination with Zen Mysticism also appealed to Franny, exhibited when her internal mantra causes her to faint. “Alone, Franny lay quite still, looking at the ceiling. Her lips began to move, forming soundless words, and they continued to move.” (Salinger page 42) Lane, Franny’s boyfriend, seems mildly concerned at first, but then makes a crude remark about sneaking into Franny’s hotel to have sex later in the night. This incident is a more symbolic, yet graphic indicator of Franny’s inability to love, as well as innocence being corrupted by an outside force. The innocence described by Salinger is subtle in phrasing, but still apparent and effective. For example, Zooey’s mother still scolds him while he’s in the bathtub, or Franny having a bad nightmare on her mothers couch each produce child-like images in the reader’s mind. Franny and Zooey paints a picture of how the Glass family functions while interacting with each other. They understand and love one another, but are incapable of loving those who are not of kin.
A different type of innocence is exuded in “Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut.” Eloise is indefinitely mourning the loss of her lover, who happens to be Walt Glass, who died in an accidental explosion while in the Navy. The use of Salinger’s subtle detailing is displayed in this story by the lack of the soldier’s last name, but based upon the soldier’s careless fault, and previously explained information about the Glass Family Tree, the reader should be able to tell that the lost love is a Glass. An immature mistake, paired with Eloise’s loss of love, is a more physical example of a Glass’ plight. Innocent can mean oblivious in a way that sums up Walt’s existence. Eloise is left to dwell and drown her sorrows while her daughter, Ramona, plays with imaginary boyfriends. Eloise, drunk and lonely, acts on her sadness like a jealous child stealing a toy from her playmate. She refuses for anyone around her to be in love. She denies Ramona the comfort of imagination by making her lay in the middle of her bed, leaving no room for imaginary boyfriends. William Weigand explains this action by stating that “it is the sense of what is missing that causes suffering.” (78 Bananas page 10) In the case of Eloise, the loss of Walt Glass causes her to suffer, which is in turn projected onto Ramona for having an imaginary boyfriend. This imaginary boyfriend that Ramona has is all too similar to the imaginary lover that Eloise longs for after the death of Walt. In the case of the Glasses, the inability to love is what is missing, which in turn causes inevitable suffering.
The inability to love fused with finding love in innocence is brought to the reader’s attention in “For Esme, with Love and Squalor.” Sergeant X is numbed by his experience in the war, mixed with his wife’s material requests in her letters from home. He longs to feel something real and considers hell to be a person’s inability to love. Meeting Esme, an articulate child in a café, gives the sergeant a reason to feel again. He finds comfort in keeping in touch with Esme as stated when the Sergeant receives a package from the young girl. "He just sat with [the watch] in his hand for a long period of time. Then, suddenly almost ecstatically, he felt sleepy" (Salinger 114) The purity radiating off of Esme and her younger brother, Charles, helped Sergeant X better understand that the lack of innocence in an adult’s life can make it seem hard to grow up.
The inability to grow up is emphasized through out the whole of Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caulfield is an angst-filled adolescent who is documenting the events following his flunking out of school. Holden is constantly penalized for his thoughtless lack of maturity. It seems to Holden’s peers that he is careless and empty minded, when in reality, Holden’s head is plagued with over-analysis. His thought process is similar to that of a curious toddler, consumed with the urge to question everything. The unspoken problem that Holden faces upon reaching maturity is the inability to let go of his childhood. He is attached to previous experiences that he subconsciously will not allow to be forgotten. Holden timidly refuses to see a former crush, Jane, for various spoken reasons, the real one being that the memory he had of Jane was already perfect in his mind. Like marking the clean slate of the freshly fallen snow, Holden doesn’t want to ruin the memory of Jane that he treasures like a worn out teddy bear. Like Seymour forcing love with Muriel, Holden tries to force maturity by drinking, smoking, and the hiring of a prostitute named Sonny. The pressure of being a man wins out momentarily, until Holden’s innocence takes over and just wants to talk to Sonny instead. Holden’s blatant desire to remain a child is present while watching his younger sister Phoebe on the carousel. He is awed by the simplistic perfection that is Phoebe’s purity and happiness. Holden speaks of his younger sister almost jealously, as if he wished he was still as happy and carefree as she is. “I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth. I don’t know why. It was just that she looked so damn nice, the way she kept going around and around, in her blue coat and all. God I wish you could have been there.” (Salinger page 213)
Salinger’s mention of a blue coat is also present in “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” one of Salinger’s Nine Stories that reveals the events prior to the suicide of Seymour Glass. Muriel, Seymour’s wife, is on the phone with her mother while vacationing in Florida. The conversation consists of Muriel’s mother questioning Seymour’s stability, asking about possessions (i.e. Blue Coat), and Muriel defending Seymour, as well as complaining about the vacation. The way both Muriel and her mother were discussing Seymour, the reader could assume that Seymour was an irresponsible child that needed constant monitoring, not a grown and married man. Meanwhile, Seymour is out at the beach discussing the ways of Bananafish with a young girl named Sybil. Their innocence and purity is equivalent on a level that is captured in Seymour’s ability to affectively communicate with the child. One could say that it was perhaps Seymour’s explanation of the tragic life of a Bananafish that sparked an epiphany in the Glass child’s brain. His inability to grow up and move forward in life, like a Bananafish stuck in a cave, was enough to make him want take his own life. This realization would ultimately lead to Seymour’s suicide in his hotel room while his wife lay asleep on the bed next to him. This disregard for bourgeois people, like Muriel and her mother, is a noted characteristic of Salinger’s child heroes.
Some may consider the final chapter in Nine Stories, “Teddy,” to be the reincarnation of Seymour from the first. The advanced spiritual enlightenment that Teddy possesses is on a level that is seemingly impossible for a boy of his age, yet he is truly a child like Seymour, ageless in innocence. His ability to look past the surface of life put Teddy on par with the rest of the Glass children. “I've talked to quite a few doctors." He shook his head. "That wouldn't interest me very much. Doctors stay too right on the surface. They're always talking about cells and things." (Salinger Nine Stories) Teddy’s realization of enlightenment could have been the catalyst that leads to his unexpected and understated death.
J.D. Salinger’s captivating ability to intertwine the lives and experiences of the Glass Family is an amazing feat in fiction. The pureness of each child is captured in drastically different ways yet they can all be placed together. Like the family’s radio show “It’s a Wise Child,” each of Salinger’s young characters possess an unexplainable wisdom beyond their years, yet they struggle to carry on in every day life. It seems no matter how many years or decades pass, the Glass siblings will forever remain “Wise Children.”