A Perfect Day for Bannafish
The definition of war is a conflict carried by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation. But to the men and women serving the armed forces it is much more than that. To them it becomes a lifestyle, a lifestyle that is hard to adapt to and mentally devastating to leave. To the outside world it seems like soldiers coming back from war would be happy to be with their families. How can someone come from such a devastating environment and be expected to be “normal” like the rest of us?
In the short story A Perfect Day for Bannafish Seymour comes home from World War II and is not given much of a chance to show he is sane even if he isn’t. Muriel’s mother is very uneasy about allowing her daughter to be alone with someone who is not mentally sound. Muriel seems confident that she is safe with Seymour but that doesn’t comfort her mother’s nerves.
Seymour seems to fear a Bannafish. In my opinion the Bannafish is all of his fears from the war bottled up. Seymour believes that all of his bad experiences will come back to haunt him. I think he believes that he is going to be sent back to the war without having the chance to protest. The Bannafish could be a symbol for how he feels inside. He believes that the war was the hole he went into and the bananas were all of is bad experiences and now he believes he is going to explode.
For Seymour the war was what killed him, just not the way you might have thought. It wasn’t him getting killed in battle or even wounded but the mental toil that it took on him. I thought that him coming home would make him happy and make him eventually forget the bad times but the complete change of lifestyle sent him over the edge.
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