Her feet are clad in mules, the utterly impractical yet universally desirable shoe for women.
While they are reveling in their bare feet, Muriel is in her climate-controlled hotel room. He gets to his feet to tell her the story of the bananafish (Salinger, 19), which is essentially a parable on the gross excesses of unchecked consumption. Her unfettered life force crushed the bloated, waterlogged symbol of society, and she ran off to join Seymour. Sybil’s last act upon leaving the private beach to join Seymour is telling: she stopped "only to stick a foot in a soggy, collapsed castle" (Salinger, 15). Seymour’s bare feet and humanity, slowly stripped of social graces, are both more comfortable off the private beach. Just as bare feet are viewed with suspicion in the modern world, so too is the non-conformist. The psychiatrist who’s in the bar "all day long" is a perfect example of the excesses of the Miami tourist (Salinger, 11).įeet are an important symbol in "A Perfect Day for Bananafish." Bare feet here are a representation of basic humanity, unbound by the trappings of society. Inside the boundaries of the hotel and its beach are adults who tolerate no deviation from societal norms while gorging themselves like bananafish. Beyond these boundaries is the freedom of relative solitude. The meeting place of the two pivotal characters of the story takes place outside of the confines of modern, repressive society, as symbolized by the hotel. She goes out of the "area reserved for guests of the hotel," where Seymour is lying on the sand (Salinger, 15). Sybil, once released from her mother, runs off to meet Seymour on the beach. Her whole hearted acceptance of his story, to the point of seeing the creature of his invention, allows him the release necessary before he ends his life. After this, Seyomur kisses her foot and suggests they exit the water, beginning the events that culminate in his suicide. She asserts that it had six bananas in its mouth, so it had begun its fatal gluttony. She also hints at the impending death when she "sees" a bananafish (Salinger, 24). Her powers of perception are alluded to when she chants "see more glass" on the beach before finding Seymour (Salinger, 14). These women were regarded as oracles or prophets, a role Sybil fulfills in "A Perfect Day for Bananafish." Sybil is also a derivative of Isabel, which means "consecrated to God." His swimming companion, Sybil, is possessed of uncanny foresight, much like the sibyls of ancient Greece and Rome. Ultimately, Seymour shatters like glass (Gwynn and Blotner, 20). He "sees more" than other people, and is possessed of a fragile psyche. Seymour Glass (see more glass) is an introspective, sensitive character. Salinger’s story abounds in literary symbolism. Only outside of traditional parameters can Seymour find happiness, casting off the pressures of society and reveling in his essential humanity. Their unlikely friendship fails to alleviate the "external forces which seek to inhibit and destroy him" (Grunwald, 123). His ally in the story is a wise-child named Sybil. The eldest Glass son, Seymour, appears in "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" as the typical Salinger hero: a non-conformist in opposition to a grossly materialistic world. His main characters, the Glass family, have been more psychoanalyzed then most real people. Salinger’s writing has been the subject of intense scrutiny for more than half a century. Either way (or even along other routes), Salinger deliberately leaves the referent of Seymour's symbols open for debate.J.D. The bananafish may be symbolic of all people, who (in their fallen state) gorge themselves so much with sensory delights that their souls (or capacity to understand the innocence of someone like Sybil, for example) are figuratively killed by "banana fever." (The sexual symbolism of the story adds weight to this interpretation.) The bananafish may also be symbolic of Seymour himself, who (like many young men) was lured into the "banana hole" of war and figuratively consumed so many of the war's horrors that he is now unable to come out of the hole and reintegrate himself into the world of non-combatants. This symbolic story of Seymour's is grounds for confusion about the nature of its referents. Seymour says that these imaginary fish lead "very tragic" lives, since they are "very ordinary-looking fish" until they swim into the banana hole, where they eat so many bananas that they get banana fever (a "terrible disease") and then die.
The most notable example of this is the story of the bananafish itself. Part of what makes "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" so intriguing is Salinger's use of symbols where the referents are highly ambiguous.
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