Seymour changed so dramatically that he is no longer able to coincide with and relate to the American society. He cannot escape the memories of war or his mental illness. When Seymour was relieved of his duties in the war, his traumatizing experiences followed him back to America.

Similarly, the bananafish entered the hole as normal fish, but were no longer able to fit back through the door after their experience in the banana hole. Seymour entered the war as an ordinary American, but came home a changed man dealing with PTSD after he witnessed the horrors of battle. Seymour Glass uses the story of the bananafish as a metaphor for the undeniable transformation he went through during the war and how he despises what the war did to him mentally. When Seymour Glass tells the story of the bananafish to young Sybil, he is actually describing his hatred for both the way the war changed him and how America changed while he was fighting for the country he used to know. Naturally, after that they’re so fat they can’t get out of the hole again” (p. Why, I’ve known some bananafish to swim into a banana hole and eat as many as seventy-eight bananas. But once they get in, they behave like pigs.

They’re very ordinary-looking fish when they swim in. He says that “ swim into a hole where there’s a lot of bananas. Seymour Glass tells the story of the bananafish to a young girl named Sybil Carpenter. His experiences in the war changed him forever, and he could no longer fit in with the consumerist America. In J.D Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” Seymour Glass is a war veteran who is dealing with PTSD. When America’s troops came home, the country had changed dramatically as it had developed into a consumerist society. Post-war America and the experiences that the soldiers suffered during WWII were so disconnected from each other that many veterans could no longer fit in with society. The soldiers who were fortunate enough to make it out alive were often scarred for life and dealt with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). On another note, the fact that Seymour sent Muriel poems from Germany-coupled with the detail that the story is set in 1948-suggests that Seymour has recently returned from fighting in World War II.World War II had a profound effect on everyone who risked their lives for their country. True to form, though, Muriel is flippant and laughs about the nickname, again unwilling to discuss it more deeply. Likewise, in calling Muriel “Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948,” Seymour seems to be criticizing Muriel’s character, suggesting that she doesn’t have a spiritual sensibility or emotional depth to her-that she’s vagrant or beggar spiritually, meaning that spirituality is something she sorely lacks.

In this passage, Muriel’s mother is once again concerned about Seymour’s behavior and her daughter’s well-being, while Muriel laughs off her concerns, unwilling or unable to have a conversation about them. Here, the man that Muriel and her mother have been talking about is revealed to be Muriel’s husband, Seymour Glass, and Seymour’s nickname for his wife reveals that the story is set in 1948.

A perfect day for bananafish