To Fill Doesn't fit

Self help was my favorite book we have read this semester. I truly enjoyed the second person narrative style that Lorrie Moore used in most of her stories. For all the short stories but the last, I became accustomed to a unique writing style. In my personal opinion, "To Fill" wasn't a great way to end the book. The story itself was very intriguing and rich but the style wasn't distinct. Although the storyline was similar to other stories in the book, the first person narrative style made it seem like it could be from some other collection of short stories. I was hoping to finish Self help off with something that resembled the rest of the book.

The narrative conventions of this final story are different from the other stories in the book. "To Fill" is written in first person and the only other story in this book that is written in first person is "What is Seized". In "To Fill", every couple pages we see stylistic italicized deviations where Riva is writing to Phillip. We don't actually find out what these letters and writings mean but the point is that we never see strange deviations similar to this in any of the other stories. In addition, the pace of this story just seems inherently faster than that of the other stories in the book. In "To fill", Lorrie Moore doesn't use quotation marks when people are speaking so there are no extra "he said, she said" words. The pace seems faster also because Riva seems like a nervous narrator because she is carrying a secret. The narration seems hurried in certain places which is understandable of anyone who is stealing money and who is constantly worried about getting caught. Since the rest of the book is mainly in second person, I feel like there is more of a steady pace because what the narrator is going through is not reflected in the writing. In first person however, the pace changes more as the main narrator is experiencing certain things.

In class on Friday, we talked about how Riva is different from the main characters in other stories in this book. I believe Kate said that she thinks Riva is older than the other women. Riva is the only woman who has a child, which seems to add an interesting and unique dynamic with her husband. We don't see this in any other stories in this book. The woman in other stories are portrayed as younger and more innocent whereas we see Riva as immoral. She is stealing money from her work but also seems to be in love with Phillip while she is married to Tom (I may be interpreting these letters completely incorrectly). In conclusion, I found "To Fill" to be very different from the other stories in this book. This story doesn't seem to go with the rest of the book even though I do believe it is one of the best stories in the collection. I wonder why Lorrie Moore chose to keep this story and why she made it the last story of the book. After all, the last story along with the first are the most important and she must have a good reason for doing this.

"Previos Condition" from last Friday has been my favorite short story in Baldwin's book Going to meet the man and one of my favorites from the first quarter all together. I had the privilege of being a student discussion leader when we discussed the story in class. I wanted to expand on some of our discussion from class and bring back some of the topics  to the forefront because I was intrigued by the conversation we had. In particular, I wanted to address the title of the story "Previous Condition" and perhaps try and better understand what it means and why Baldwin might have chosen it. Second, I wanted to dig into Peter's character and try to understand why Peter is feeling so miserable as we started to discuss before class ended last Friday. 

In class, Timmy brought up the point that " Previous Condition of Servitude" appears in the Fifteenth constitutional amendment which directly states "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Baldwin might not have intended to draw this direct connection to the fifth amendment but the link seems strong. Even though the story has nothing to do with voting, in the story, Peter is denied a place to live by the Landlady who ends up evicting him simply for his color and race. She acknowledges that even if Peter causes no trouble, acts friendly, and follows the rules, that people will fear him because he is black. Servitude implies slavery but I think Baldwin is getting at something slightly different. Previous condition might just refer to his inherent race. He can't change who he is and even by living with white people and having white friends, he is truly black as that is part of his identity. Someone in class brought up, I think it was Alissa that this same sort of thing happened in another book (I can't remember the name of the book) where we see an African-American character trying to escape his people and integrate into white society but is turned down and pushed away.

In a sense, I feel like Peter embraces the white ideas and racist notions towards black people. He blames his race for the all the misery he goes through in his life and he says that he doesn't like the way African Americans live. I even recall him saying that he isn't fond of the idea of playing a black man in one of his plays. His actions show us that Peter is a black man who wants desperately to be a white man as he associates with white people, and only goes to segregated places. As we see in the book, white society don't embrace Peter. In his apartment, he is scared. He can't sleep and doesn't feel comfortable. Peter is trying to escape his African- American roots because he is ashamed and humiliated, but he doesn't escape the fear and humiliation that he inflicts upon himself by trying to integrate into white society. He gets rejected when the landlady kicks him out and only has shame and more misery when he has nowhere to sleep.

After reading all of the stories in Nine stories, I personally enjoyed “A perfect day for a Bananfish” and “Teddy” the most. I found it fitting that Salinger would use both these stories to start and end his book. The end of “A perfect day for a Bananfish” is surprising and shocking because there is no buildup or hint that Seymour will shoot himself. It draws the reader in and makes them want to read more stories. The end of “Teddy” is perfect because it keeps the reader wondering why the girl screams. Needless to say, both these stories have a very similar ending. I think both these stories play off each other well. As discussed in class on Friday, both stories have similar settings, and characters.

The endings of “A perfect day for a Bananfish” and “Teddy” resemble each other very closely. In “A perfect day for a Bananfish”, Seymour kills himself by “shooting a bullet through his right temple”. In “Teddy”, the ending is somewhat unclear. We aren't sure what Seymour’s sister, Booper, is screaming about. Is she herself falling into the pool and killing herself? Or, more likely as we concluded in class on Friday, is she reacting to Teddy after he is pushed into the pool? If Teddy dies at the end of the story, then the main character in both stories dies rather mysteriously. Needless to say, if this is what Salinger intended the reader to conclude (as it would seem from Teddy’s journal entry that his death will either happen today or February 14, 1958), the deaths at the end of these stories could undoubtedly be describes as surprising and unexpected. 

Both these stories have very similar settings. They both take place on a vacation. In “A perfect day for Bananafish”, the story takes place at a hotel. We have scenes inside the hotel as well as on the beach. In “Teddy”, the story takes place on a cruise where there are scenes in a room and others outside on the deck. The weather in both stories is portrayed as sunny and warm. However, there is an underlying tension in both stories that somehow transforms this image of happiness into one of gloom. In “A perfect day for “Bananafish”, Seymour and Muriel never actually talk. They seem rather isolated and distant due to Seymour’s erratic and unpredictable behavior. From Muriel’s call with her mother, we learn that Seymour is having problems and that Muriel’s mother seems uncomfortable with them being together. Based on my interpretation, their relationship doesn't seem like one of a happy young couple. In “Teddy”, when Teddy is with his mother and father, they bicker aand make some very hateful comments directed at one another. When Teddy is standing on his parents bag, his dad tells demands that he get off immediately whereas his mother tells him to stay putt. It seems as if Teddy’s mother is trying to make her husband mad by saying this. All things considered, the mood doesn't seem like one of a happy family. 

In my personal opinion, Seymour and Teddy share some similar qualities. Both these main characters see the world differently compared to the other characters in their stories. In “A perfect day for a Bananfish”, Seymour is talked about by Muriel’s mother, father, and various physiatrists for his mania. In “Teddy”, Teddy is well known around the world for his genius and his “out of the box” ideas which some people think are crazy. Additionally, Teddy and Seymour seem to call upon their own death in the stories. Seymour kills himself. We don't know what happens to Teddy but he seems fond of death and understands it to be part of a larger cycle where humans are reincarnated many times. In class on Friday, someone brought up the idea that Seymour might be a reincarnation of Teddy. I wonder if that’s indeed what Salinger was getting at.