Monday, September 9, 2013
Are Ankles and War Related?
In the first three stories of J. D. Salinger's Nine Stories, ankles and war stories are always brought up, usually related in some way. In "A Perfect Day For Bananafish", Seymour suffers from PTSD after fighting in the war. When he and Sybil are on the beach together, he grabs ahold of her ankles several times. This could possibly be as a result of the war. Maybe he lost one of his legs and cherishes ankles. Maybe he just likes ankles. In "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut", Eloise falls in front of her boyfriend, Walt, hurting her ankle. Walt, who ends up dying in the war, uses the term "Poor Uncle Wiggily" to refer to her ankle. Whenever Eloise thinks about Walt or her ankle, her memories are tainted with the poison of war and the death of Walt. Finally, in "Just Before the War with the Eskimos", Franklin seems to scratch areas of his body throughout the whole story. However, his favorite place to scratch seems to be his ankles, as it is mentioned several times. Not only that, but it only mentions Franklin's ankles when he and Ginnie are talking about her sister, a girl who Frankly clearly had feelings for despite calling her snobby. What makes this so interesting is that Joan (Ginnie's sister) is now engaged to a Lieutenant commander in the Navy who is fighting in the war. He scratches his ankles several times while talking about Joan and the war. In Salinger's first three stories, ankles and war seem to go hand in hand.
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Not only, are ankles linked with war, but more so is the fact that ankles are related to bad memories of war. In "Bananafish", memories from the war cause Seymour to lose his mind, both literally and figuratively. In "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut," the war only brought pain to Eloise because she lost her potential husband to it. She only thinks of war as something painful and associates it with loss, similar to Seymour who lost his innocence and sanity in war. In, "Just Before the War with the Eskimos" Franklin, is on the other side of the war producing airplanes, but still seems to suffer from depression. Both he and Eric prefer not talk about it, even though they are very open with Ginnie. Furthermore, Franklin loses his girlfriend to a man from the army, again associating the army and war with loss. This could be Salanger emphasizing that nothing good can come of war, while characters fidget or touch ankles and feet.
ReplyDelete~Evan the Great~