Salinger's "Bananafish" as Extended Zen Koan

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses J.D. Salinger's "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and how it relates to zen koan. The paper shows how the story functions not as a conclusive narrative statement, but as a paradox or, more precisely, a Zen koan. It focuses on how the story encourages thought but eludes coherent meaning and how it never reaches a conclusion.

From the Paper:

"Despite his simple, unaffected prose, Salinger's symbolism in "Bananafish" is confounding. It characterizes Seymour as being at once a broken victim of war who's seen too much and a spiritual seeker who thirsts to see more; it paints Sybil as being both angelic and vicious, a naive innocent and a perceptive prophet. An understanding of "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," at first glance a frustratingly paradoxical if not imperfect story, demands a consideration of Salinger's well-known interest in Zen Buddhism, made manifest in his epigraph to Nine Stories. Seen in that light, the story begins to resemble an insoluble Zen koan, and though attempting to find an "answer" to it might be as futile as fishing for bananafish, it is of its nature to encourage the reader to do just that, a nonetheless fruitful endeavor."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Salinger, J.D. "A Perfect Day for Bananafish." Nine Stories. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1953, 3-26.

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• Term Paper # 121225 : "Zen Buddhism"

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