Mysterious, confusing, thought provoking and inter-locking are a few words that explain J. The author throughout this book uses children to show the innocence and happiness of youth. The carefree world of children and the unhappy worlds of his adult characters coincide until something from the past changes the characters forever.
In Laughing Man, Salinger portrays the young boy and narrator as a happy go lucky child playing sports, enjoying the company of his friends and most of all getting lost in the fantastical story telling of his bus driver. Although Laughing Man had deformities and evil enemies, the boy could block out those parts of the story because Laughing Man would prevail. When Laughing Man was killed, part of the boy's childhood was taken away, too. Stories come to an end and innocence to comes to an end.
Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut is an interesting story with the main character, Eloise living a very unhappy life. Eloise's past was in her eyes a blissful one. Walt was the man she truly loved. Walt made her laugh. Eloise felt childish and carefree with Walt. When he was killed, Eloise never regained her happiness. She married Lew and had her daughter Ramona. With her friend Mary Jane, she relived the death of Walt and in turn was able to mourn him. When Eloise's daughter's imaginary friend, Jimmy was run over and died and was no more in Ramona's eyes, it brought back the sadness Eloise felt when Walt died. Quickly, Ramona replaced Jimmy with Mickey just like Eloise replaced Walt with Lew. Eloise showed anger towards Ramona because she saw herself in Ramona. Eloise was really angry with herself. She was angry because she replaced Walt with Lew as if it was insignificant and it meant nothing. Eloise lost her inner child and replaced it with an adult she was unhappy with.
Life for Seymour Glass, the main character in A Perfect Day for Bananafish, was too difficult for him.
