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... woman of twenty years recollects her experiences as an actress in school plays: I just quit [acting], that's all, ' Franny said. 'It started embarrassing me. I began to feel like such a nasty little egomaniac. 's he reflected. 'I don't know. It seemed like such poor taste, sort of, to want to act in the first place.
I mean all the ego. And I used to hate myself so, when I was in a play, to be backstage after the play was over. All those egos running around feeling terribly charitable and warm. Kissing everybody and wearing their makeup all over the place, and then trying to be horribly natural and friendly when your friends came backstage to see you. (FZ 28) Franny feels emotionally cut off when she allows her ego to take control of her actions and behavior. She is sickened by pretending to be someone who she really isn't, and by others who do the same thing.
Franny is intelligent, and knows that the phony mask of "niceness" is only to cover up the actors' true, competitive intentions of materialism, egotism, and greed. Not only has Franny become emotionally distraught because she can't come to terms with the world's phoniness, she has become self critical and realizes what she's doing is putting a mask over her true feelings and hiding behind it. This feeling of embarrassment and overall confusion causes Franny to be not simply emotionally unstable, but physically as well. For several minutes now, she had seemed to be losing color in her face. Suddenly, even her lipstick seemed a shade or two lighter, as though she had just blotted it with a leaf of Kleenex. (FZ 18) The characters see that society has become bad, and in order for them to become happy they must get away from society, and live their own lives. Salinger uses many symbols in his works to show to fulfill the quest for happiness.
In Catcher in the Rye, Salinger refers to ducks in central park. The ducks can be compared to a scripture in the Bible, which tells of how the ducks are free, later he explains that Holden will become free as these ducks or They may be Holden himself. When talking about the ducks he is referring to himself. "Where do the ducks go in winter... " is a reference to the fact that he has no idea where to go while depressed. they symbolize Holden's fight to escape from depression... His depression is also symbolized by coldness, and Salinger uses the familiar symbol here In Catcher in the Rye Holden's main purpose was to be free from the suffering The ducks represented how he would feel, being happy.
His hunting hat is a symbol of baptism or a magical protective means. My hunting hat really did give me a lot of protection, in a way, but I got soaked anyway. I didn't care, though. I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. (CR 54) Salinger uses intertextuality where texts relate to each other in a multitude of ways. Intertextuality tries to capture various kinds of relation. Dictionary says: Intertextuality - a term coined by Julia Kristeva in 1966 to denote the interdependence of literary texts, the interdependence of any one literary text with the ones that have gone before it.
Her contention was that a literary text is not an isolated phenomenon but is made up of a mosaic of quotations, and that any text is the 'absorption and transformation of another'. Such a mosaic is composed of Holden Caufield and Huckleberry Finn. Salinger portrays how Holden in Catcher in the Rye changes to a different man when he is at the water fountain in Central Park, as the case in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn in which Huck changes when he is on the Mississippi River. Holden's nonconformity with the society is pointed out by language he uses his outside position is underlined by phrases he uses about the truth: "I don't even think the bastard had a handkerchief, if you want to know the truth. " (CR 10) "I'm a pacifist, if you wanna know the truth. " (CR 10) "She had quite a lot of sex appeal, too, if you want to know the truth. " (CR 56) "If you wanna know the truth, I'm a virgin. " (CR 92) overuse of goddamn He put my goddam paper down... " (12) "I hated that goddam Elkton Hills. " (14) "I landed on him like a goddam panther. " (30) "I mean I'm not gonna be a goddam surgeon or a violinist or anything anyway. " (39) .".. ya goddam moron!" (44) not kidding "The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has - I'm not kidding. " (CR 4) "Then I just started reading this timetable I had in my pocket. Just to stop lying.
Once I get started, I could go on for hours if I feel like it. No kidding. " (CR 58) "I'm not kidding, the hotel was lousy with perverts. " (CR 62) or what kills me "It was about this little kid that wouldn't let anybody look at his goldfish because he'd bought it with his own money. It killed me. " (CR 2) "Women kill me. " (CR 54) "Sensitive. That killed me.
That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a goddam toilet seat. " (CR 55) In Perfect Day for Bananafish, the bananfish represents a contemporary man who, blinded with his greed, forgets about the essential who are guilty of overeating themselves with meaningless material objects until they become so superficial they are beyond hope of ever attaining spiritual purity. Well they [banana fish] swim into a hole where theres a lot of bananas. Theyre very ordinary-looking fish when they swim in. But once they get in, they behave like pigs.
Why Ive known some banana fish to swim into a banana hole and eat as many as seventy-eight bananas Naturally after that they are so fat that they cant get out of the hole again. Cant fit through the door. Salinger uses symbolism from other books in his books to convey how the characters in his works will change for a better life. Salinger uses much of the symbolism to show how the life of the characters has become happy or the turning point of the character's lives.
The works of Salinger show the quest for happiness through religion, loneliness, and symbolism. His writings deal with characters fulfilling their quest for happiness. He would have the character's accomplish their quest by going through obstacles, in which they learned about their lives. He employed the religion, loneliness, and symbolism as means for the characters to understand how to obtain happiness in life.
Free research essays on topics related to: quest for happiness, hunting hat, banana fish, huckleberry finn, catcher in the rye
Research essay sample on Means By Which Salinger Characters Pursue Happiness
