The Development of Seymour Glass as a Figure of Hope in the Fiction of J.D. Salinger

Abstract

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to show the development of J.D. Salinger's character, Seymour Glass, in the following works, and in the order in which they first appeared: "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" (1948), "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" [19551, "Seymour: An Introduction" [19591, "Hapworth 16; 1924" [1965].</p> <p>Seymour Glass is a greatly misunderstood protagonist in modern literature, and I hope to shed some light on his important function. He is a character who possesses a remarkable intellect, and whose supposed saintliness is conceived by many critics as inconsistent with the fact that he commits suicide, I hope to show, nevertheless, that Seymour Glass is a figure of hope for modern North America, in particular, and not a figure of despair. I also hope to show that the charge made against Seymour's inconsistent and, therefore, incredible, unreliable character, reveals the insufficiently perceptive reading on the part of the critics, and not the inability of Salinger to create fine literature.</p>