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A Life with PTSD

A Perfect Day for Banana Fish is about a man that got back from World War II and is
vacationing with his wife. While on vacation he socializes with this little girl called Sybil and
makes her his friend. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), also known as shell shock or combat
stress, is very common for people who have been thru traumatic experiences, like soldiers
coming back from war. Some symptoms of PTSD are recurring memories of the event, loss of
interest, feeling numb, loss of sleep and feeling angry and irritable. Seymour has a loss of
interest except when he is around Sybil, he tells her stories and plays with her as if everything
was fine with him. He doesnt get very angry in the story but when the woman in the elevator
was looking at his feet he got a little mad. Seymour has PTSD caused by the horrors from war
and this influences his suicidal tendency.
Seymour Glass displays several symptoms that indicate that he suffers from PTSD.
Muriels mother is worried about his suicidal tendencies and if they would affect her daughter.
She (Seymours mother in law) remarks, Did he try any of the funny business with the trees
(Salinger, 5). The funny business she refers to is suicide, since he tried to take his life by
crashing a car into a tree. There are some symbols in the story like the trees and tigers, Did the
tigers run all around that tree? (Salinger 14). This could be a reference to how the solders, after
the war, think about killing themselves and how it could be a solution to their problems or this is
how they look at it. This can be a trigger from an old memory that made him want to end his life.
Seymour had a trigger that was the trees, but later in the story the trees did not affect him.
Veterans of war who have PTSD have a higher suicide rate that regular people, through the story
we can see that Seymour has that urge to kill himself. The reader can interpret the bananafish as
a push for him to commit suicide.

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The banana fish are a symbol for what Seymour thinks he is. Seymour describes
bananafish as:
Well, they swim into a hole where theres a lot of bananas. Theyre very ordinary
looking fish when they swim in. But once they get in, they behave like pigs
Naturally, after that there so fat they cant get out of the hole again. (Salinger, 16)
He is comparing the bananafish with the transformation that happens to the soldiers before and
after the war. He later tells Sybil that bananafish die from banana fever after getting stuck in the
hole. The banana fever could be a symbol for PTSD and how the soldier that have it tend to die
from it. In other words he is comparing himself to a bananafish, when he got back from Germany
he was not the same person.
From the beginning of the story, the reader could interpret that something bad was going
to happen. A foreshadowing can be read at the beginning of the story: Seymour may completely
lose control of himself (Salinger 6). This is said by his doctor, he knew that Seymour was going
to commit suicide or hurt someone while trying to. He was planning to kill himself in the trip
since he brought a gun with him but he didnt know when to do this.
A factor that can influence his need to commit suicide is the bananafish. The day
Seymour decides to commit suicide is when Sybil sees a bananafish. Since they were an animal
that he invented, he was surprised when Sybil said she say one. At that moment he did not
immediately decide to kill himself but he probably started thinking about it. Another factor that
influence him to end his life is the elevator scene. Seymour got mad at the woman who was
supposedly looking at his feet, which scared her. This is the last that happened before he got in
the room and shot himself in front of his wife. This two things pushed him to commit suicide but

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the reader cannot infer which one did the most effect and ultimately made him take a decision.
The worst thing is that since he killed himself in the room with his wife sleeping in the other bed,
she had to be awakened by the gunshot sound and then to see her dead husband must have been
traumatizing for her. After that traumatic experience, she could develop PTSD form that.
His post dramatic stress disorder can also be influenced by his image about himself and
how others see him. Seymour was very pale and even by going to the beach he remained pale.
Even when Muriel, his wife, was talking to her mother they talked about how he didnt get
enough sun and that is why he is so pale. He never took off his robe unless when he was with
Sybil in the water meaning that he did not like showing his body. We can also see this in, I have
two normal feet and I cant see the slightest God-damned reason why anybody should stare at
them (Salinger, 18). This was after the woman in the elevator was supposedly staring at his feet.
He got mad when this happened and one of the symptoms of PTSD is being mad, but in his case
it was for being angry for such a stupid thing.
A Perfect Day for Bananafish is a story about a man that suffers from PTSD because of
the war he was in. He has a suicidal tendency and in the end he kills himself. He befriends a little
girl who symbolizes the innocence in the story and the innocence he lost. He imagines an animal
that represents how he is feeling and how many other soldiers may also feel. Seymour has some
of the symptoms of post dramatic stress disorder and they influence his life and his decision
making. The trees reminded him of war and thats why he tried to commit suicide for the first
time. The second time he did not have a trigger but instead had two thing that pushed him to kill
himself, this where the bananafish and his anger towards his insecurity.

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Work Cited:
Salinger, J. D. "A Perfect Day for Bananafish." Nine Stories. New York, London, Boston: Little,
Brown, n.d. 3-18. Print.
Hudenko, William, Beeta Homaifar, and Hal Wortzel. "The Relationship Between PTSD and
Suicide." U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.