Perfect Day For Bananafish

1765 Words8 Pages
People are faced with many issues throughout their lives. Some of them are disastrous time bombs, uncontrollable machines, getting bigger and bigger until they explode. Within in the short stories J.D Salinger tells us that you cannot handle the time bombs alone. Your must ask others for their assistance, only they can help your conflicts. Within “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “Laughing Man” many similar ideas are highlighted to bring out this idea that he is telling everyone. Help is available from others, they are willing to learn of their issues and deal with them, however they are always turned down. All the characters with the issues are extremely different from each other, however J.D shows how they face these issues no matter who…show more content…
It’s a terrible disease.”. The innocent Bananafish imagined in his world gets consumed by a disease and dies out. The disease it also what consumes Samuel and results in his death. Fever causes madness or insanity that can be fatal. Samuel too is inflicted with a type of madness that is the source of his issues. Even with the world of fantasy he couldn’t solve the problem. His imaginary protagonist eventually gets consumed by the same issue and fate. Chief also imagines a great protagonist who is a hero to many. Many people eventually begin to judge the Laughing Man and try to dissociate themselves from him. He becomes alone and isolated with no one to understand but his group of companions, (in Chief’s case the Comanches). Within in this group of companions, Blackwing (Mary), is loved above the rest. Laughing Man life he loves, just like Chief who, but one day a drastic shift in the air happened and ruined everything. Blackwing was captured and Laughing man goes to rescue her. After severe fighting he find Omba and, “weakly pronounced his beloved Black Wing’s name. Omba bowed his slightly distorted head and revealed to his master that Dufarges had killed Blackwing.” Chief made an imaginary world extremely similar to the world he lived in to deal with all the judgement the outside world gives him. But, when Mary and Chief break up his entire fantasy world crumbles. Laughing man, who could not live without his…show more content…
Samuel and Chief both abandon all help and are faced with their issues at 100%. Holden accepts the help from Phoebe and solves the issue he was stuck with. Samuel and Chief never wanted help and because of that faced their demise at the very end of the stories. Salinger doesn’t explain what happens after the event as it flat out shows that no good will come afterward. With Holden it leaves an explanation for a future, the future looks bright and shows that Holden received the help he needed. Holden reached out and took Phoebe's hand and learned the lesson that would save his life. “The thing with kids is, if they want to grab the gold ring, your have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off,” After accepting the help he needed he learned that it’s ok to grow up. The gold ring signifies the future. As the kids ride along on the innocent ride they seek out the future and what it holds for them. Eventually they will fall off into the world he is afraid to go into, but that ok. With this in mind he was able to go back to school and seek the help he rightfully deserved. By comparing how one of many can conquer their issue to others, with more experience in life, who were not able to conquer their issue, he shows the only option to solve the problem is by receiving
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