Innocence


As we have been reading through the collection of stories by J D Salinger I have noticed on the thread that seems to impact nearly every story. The loss of innocence has been touched on in many ways in the various stories. Throughout the stories, the mentally fit adults all seem to be flawed. However, the children all seem to have an uncontested innocence and purity that protects them from the outside world. 
In “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” Muriel is depicted as materialistic and elitist from the first scene. Salinger purposefully notes her clothing and her attitude when waiting to pick up the phone. She does not have any innocence and is rather very full of herself. Unlike Muriel, Sybil is compassionate and rather simplistic. She doesn’t care about materialistic things and the way people think about her but rather just talking to the nice man on the beach. Seymour is an outlier as an adult due to his mental state he focuses on his conversation with Sybil more than anything else and when he finally reconnect to the “adult” world that Muriel lives in he blows his brains out. 
In “Uncle Wiggily In Connecticut” the disconnect is even more apparent. Ramona is the perfect example of a child living in their own carefree world. Ramona has imaginary friends and only tries to have fun and “play outside.” Unlike her daughter, Eloise s deeply connected to the dark adult world. Eloise spends the day drinking, smoking and gossiping about her past. The innocence that she lost. She even goes as far to make herself feel superior over her daughter by bullying her daughter while she is trying to sleep.
Finally in “The Laughing Man” we see the progression through the loss of innocence. In the beginning, we know the Chief as a caring law student who entertains a group of young boys through adventure and stories. But as Mary enters the picture and they have their disagreement and eventual split, we see the loss of the Chief's youthful innocence and the ending of his serial story. Unlike the other stories where we are introduced to the adults while they are in the dark phases, we see the progression of the Chief from a pure youth into a flawed adult. This is also reflected through the story of the laughing man, he dies just as the Chief’s youth dies.
It seems that Salinger is trying to the readers about how life will change a person from being the carefree child he depicts into a harrowed and troubled adult.

Comments

  1. ZachMarch 16, 2018 at 6:18 AM

    I agree that Salinger frequently depicted children losing their innocent views of the world, it certainly appears to be a common theme of his to show how childhood is fleeting, and that growing up you inevitably realize the world isn't how you thought it was. On top of depicting the transition to adulthood, I think Salinger was also trying to stress the importance of valuing childhood and the innocence it has. Good post!

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