Subject: Eskimos
From: Paul Miller (phm@midsouth.rr.com)
Date: Mon Jan 31 2000 - 15:29:54 EST
In "Just Before the War with the Eskimos" franklin tells us he has cut his
finger and is quite fixed on this through the story. This story I think is
chock full of symbols.
His cut finger represents his pain and suffering in general. he cut it by
searching for something in a waste basket full of razor blades which
represents our culture and Franklins experience of it in his life thus far.
Franklin tells Ginnie that "I don't like it when it stings". Ginnie tells
him "Nobody does". Ginnie suddenly tells him "Stop touching it'. Franklin
responds like he has had an electric shock. He sits up strighter and a
dreamy expression comes over him.
This is one of Salinger's transcendant moments. Franklin glimpses that his
mind is constantly touching on his suffering. While he is telling Ginnie
about some of his life she tells him "Your finger'll start bleeding more if
you hold it down that way" and he continues to talk holding nothing down.
later he refuses to consider putting a band-aid on his wound which could be
a refusal of any of the standard illusions people try on to avoid suffering.
he offers Ginnie a half sandwich symbolizing incarnation and the communion
wafer as well as the communion he and ginnie have just shared.
She no longer wants money from Franklin's sister and makes plans to get
together with her later.
Out in the street she discovers the sandwich in her pocket and decides not
to throw it away. We are told of the 3 days it took her to discard an easter
chick layind dead in her waste basket. Again the waste basket is our culture
and possibly what a culture did to a man two thousand years ago, I'm
stretching here.
the 3 days and the easter refrence remind us of resurrection and that
Ginnie and franklin are not quite the same as they were before their
"meetcha at the corner" experience.
I may be wrong on a good part of this, but it was fun.
Paul M
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