There are many similarities between "Teddy" and "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," the last and first stories in Nine Stories. Both take place at lavish places on or near the ocean, for example. There are also lots of similarities between the main characters of these two stories, Teddy McArdle and Seymour Glass.
Teddy and Seymour are both wise characters who are stuck in the midst of some superficial, materialistic characters. Teddy's shallow parents always cut him off when he says his observations and philosophical ideas aloud. Muriel probably cares about Seymour, but she doesn't realize how much Seymour is struggling during the story. She is so oblivious that she sleeps while he commits suicide. This puts Teddy and Seymour in similar situations, and these two characters both deal with it by running away from the superficial characters. Teddy seems to go into in his own world and focus on spirituality by himself. Seymour escapes the materialism around him by spending time with young children who don't care much about wealth.
Another similarity between "Teddy" and "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" is that Teddy and Seymour both die at the end of their stories, and both seem relatively calm about death. Teddy knows he is either going to die the day the story takes place or when he's 16, so his death doesn't really surprise him. Throughout the story, he's calm whenever he talks about death. This could be because he believes in reincarnation, so death just means moving on from one life and going to the next. Seymour commits suicide, and he also doesn't appear to be afraid of death. It seems like Seymour is disgusted with materialism and since it's all around him, he believes that death is the best option.
Perhaps the most interesting similarity between Teddy and Seymour is that their philosophical ideas seem to be related in some ways. Teddy believes that people need to "unlearn" things that they have already learned in order to achieve spiritual enlightenment; they have to "spit out the apple." Seymour thinks that people overindulge in material pursuits and this makes them superficial; they need to "stop eating so many bananas." Both characters think that people's brains are full of thoughts that they have to remove in order to improve themselves.
I thought your comparison of Teddy and Seymour was well-done. I hadn't thought much about superficiality in "Teddy" but it fits well in what you said here. There is the theme of returning to childhood, or at least to innocence of some kind. I had not noticed that.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I definitely see parallels between them. I also find it interesting that Teddy seems to spend a lot of time with adults and Seymour prefers the company of children. They are both very unique characters. I wonder if Teddy's (possible) death is supposed to make us look at Seymour's death differently. Was Seymour moving onto another incarnation that was a better fit for him (like Teddy would have us believe)?
ReplyDeleteYou make some great comparisons here relating two very unique, at first seemingly distant characters, linking them together in almost all aspects. I hadn't thought much about how Teddy's prowess and dealings with spirituality and philosophy run over into "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," but the connection you make between these notions and Seymour's rejection of materialistic things in sound. One difference that we can observe in the stories, however, is how the two interact with others in their daily lives. Seymour spends most of his time shutting out many materialistic things and thought by spending all of his time with a 4 year old, Sybil. Teddy on the other hand, spends his last minutes grappling with the concepts of spirituality with Nicholson, as opposed to acting very passively in the end like Seymour does.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really good post, Monica! I like how you flesh out Seymour and Teddy's similarities and differences. They're both fascinating characters. We didn't get a chance to touch on this topic as student discussion leaders, so I'm glad you brought it to your blog!
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