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.