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Corey Sweeney Mrs. Curtis Honors Lit/Comp 6 December 2010 An Imperfect World A childs life consists of laughing and catching butterflies, hanging on the monkey bars and playing tag; but what happens to change us into the materialistic person and corrupted people that define us as adults? Seymour Glass, the main character in J.D. Salingers A Perfect Day for Bananafish has taken the turn from the innocence of childhood to the corrupted adult world because of war. With war as his only reason for changing, Seymour returns looking to continue his innocent life, but instead enters a world filled with materialism and corruption. Seymour Glasss journey illustrates not only the posthorrors of war, but also the reality of stepping back into a world nowhere near ideal. Posttraumatic stress disorder affects individuals who have experienced profound emotional trauma, such as torture, rape, military combat, or a natural disaster. Things like recurrent flashbacks of the traumatic event, nightmares, anxiety, and social withdrawal characterize it. Seymour, although unknown to him at the time, is suffering from this horrible disorder of the mind. He is lost in a world of trouble and receives no help from his oblivious and uncaring wife, Muriel. During a discussion with her mother, Muriel says that instead of going back to see her husband, she is going to stay because, This is the first vacation Ive had in years, and Im not going to just pack everything and come home (7). Muriels mother explains that Seymours doctor told them that he may completely lose control (7), but no circumstance is going to take dear Muriel away from her precious vacation and back home

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to her real life and her husband that she is supposed to love unconditionally. With this lack of support from Seymours closest family members, it is obvious that he stepped back into a world completely opposite of the one he expected. Seymour was only looking for support, and without the support of his immediate family, he was forced closer to ending his life. Seymour left his world for war at a young age, young enough to not realize the reality of the world around him. He left as an innocent and pure human being, only because he wasnt old enough to turn into the materialistic and corrupted people that surrounded him when he came back. His own wife possessed these materialistic traits. Instead of spending time with her husband, She washed her comb and brush. She took the spot out of the skirt of her beige suit. She moved the button on her Saks blouse. She tweezed out two freshly surfaced hairs in her mole. When the operator finally rang her room, she was sitting on the window seat and had almost finished putting lacquer on the nails of her left hand (3). As innocent as the world was when Seymour left for the war, so was it that corrupted when he returned. Seymour needed some form of happiness again, and that form was in the innocence that he still possessed and wanted his wife among others to possess with him. But they had changed. Seymour was lost in a world in which he was the odd man off, the one not possessed by the materials and corruptness of the people surrounding him. This caused him massive shock, and he was now lost because he was thrown into an unknown world. Although Seymour is lost in a world far different than himself, he finds some commonality in Sybil, a child that he meets at a hotel that he is staying at. Sybil, still curious, innocent, and pure, was Seymours view of the perfect world. Sybil, while standing the elevator with her mother, talks to her, saying, See more glass. Did you see more glass?

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The mother responds, saying, Pussycat, stop saying that. Its driving Mommy absolutely crazy. Hold still, please (10). During this conversation, innocence is portrayed in the actions and words of Sybil, who is able to joke and play. The mother, however, represents the world that Seymour was thrown so harshly back into after the war. Later, Seymour, while playing with Sybil, picked up one of Sybils wet feet, which were drooping over the end of the float, and kissed the arch (16). Seymour now physically shows his affection for innocence and the loveliness of his perfect world. Seymour misses this world and wants it more than anything. Along with his posttraumatic stress disorder, his uncaring, materialistic wife, and the perfect world that is out of reach for him, Seymour instead takes his life, finding it easier to be dead than to live in a life that he no longer wants. Seymour, after looking in disgust at his wife and the life she lived, turned to Sybil and glanced at the girl lying asleep on one of the twin beds. Then he went over to one of the pieces of luggage, opened it, and from under a pile of shorts and undershirts he took out an Ortgies caliber 7.65 automatic. He released the magazine, looked at it, then reinserted it. He cocked the piece. Then he went over and sat down on the unoccupied twin bed, looked at the girl, aimed the pistol, and fired a bullet through his right temple (18). Seymour decided that life was not worth living because of this, and, while sitting next to what he believed to be the representation of the perfect world, Seymour took himself out of the horrible world that surrounded him. All things truly wicked start from innocence. An innocent man found himself living in an impure and materialistic world. Seymour Glass returned from the war scarred, and expected life at home to be as pleasant as the war was awful for him. However, when he trudged back into the world he had been missing for so long, he soon found out that there

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was no place in the world that was perfect, and that was something that he could not accept.