Re: Seymour's Suicide
Mattis Fishman (mattis@argos.argoscomp.com)
Wed, 16 Jul 1997 16:08:18 -0400
Hello,
It is always a pleasure reading what everyone has to say about
Seymour. Unfortunately, there are a lot of obstacles in my way
which prevent me from (probably ever) understanding it. First,
there is the problem of the two Seymours, the troubled, fragile
suicide and the detached, holy, mystic. It seems clear that JDS
has tried to give us retroactive clues, but as someone has
mentioned (again, forgive me for not remebering any names) they
seem contradictory to the sense of APDFB (as he worded it, they
dull the impact - but I think this is just another symptom of the
clash between the sudden suicide, a seeming act of desparation, and
the self-knowing, holy, meditative behavior we learn about later)
(forgive the digressing during a digression, but perhaps suicide on
impulse is like shooting marbles without aiming...).
The harder part, for me, is separating myself from the stories. That is,
APDFB is so objective and panoramic that we are left by ourselves to
interpret the events and personalities it contains based on our own
values. How do you like someone who lets the the phone ring? A little
girl who teases little dogs? Shooting oneself? Some things are totally
outside of my frame of reference - the war, for example, while others
elicit a strong and culturally standard response, suicide and callous
in-laws. For such a story, which does not "say" but "is", the author
relies on his common cultural background with his readers. I don't
think it would be fair for an author of anthrophagous orientation
(ok, that's a cannibal) to expect us to understand automatically his
predilection, yet you can safely say that someone who is portrayed as
denigrating and meddling is probably Not a Nice Person.
If APDFB is not challenging our own assumptions about the events it
contains, then it certainly seems a story about someone who reacts to
stressful events in a drastic way, guaranteed to earn for himself our
pity and perhaps contempt. If, conversely, the author is asking us to
reconsider our attitudes, then it's certainly possible that the attitude
that has to change is that towards suicide, and by extrapolation towards
life and death. I think that the first step in understanding this story
is to ask which of these two schemes fit the story best.
To me, there are certainly enough clues in APDFB to suggest that
honi soit qui mal y pense. Rilke, the trees, Seymour and Sybil, even
the "foot incident" all suggest that we a dealing with a person of
insight greater than ours. The problem with this is intrinsic - a human
being is capable of recognizing a superior intellect, yet because
he lacks that intellect how can he know the nature of the knowledge
possessed by the master? If Seymour is priviledged to look further into
man's fate than we are, then again it is "unfair" for an author to
base his conclusion on knowledge which we are not privy to. An alternative,
though, would be that he is simply suggesting to us that we should stand
on our tiptoes.
I, personally, do not know which way to view the story, nor have I
managed to achieve the insight which (if it was JDS's purpose to impart)
the story hints at. Of course, it is possible that my own development
has led me in the opposite direction, that my own morals are so un-Seymourlike
that I will never appreciate JDS's point of view - heck, he may even be
wrong (perish the thought).
I do wish to disagree with one point that people have made regarding Seymour
becoming disenchanted when Sybil sees the bananafish, as though she had
learned to lie for her own benefit. As I said before, I can only see
this event through the eyes of my own experience. As a former teacher,
married to a kindergarten teacher, with two handsfull of my own children
(four of whom are under age 6) I cannot see myself being anything other
than delighted by Sybil seeing those fish. When children engage in
imaginative fantasy they always strike me as their most intriguing, and
certainly deserving of love and admiration, not censure. Overall, I think
JDS comes down solidly on this side, that is if you believe he sympathizes
with Ramona, Lionel and Charles. In APDFB I think the evidence is also there -
after all, Seymour himself makes the suggestion, wouldn't it be hypocrisy to
condemn her playing his own game? Afterwards, he kisses her foot, in my mind
a sure sign of (wholesome, innocent) love and identification. I sometimes
think that the two most important words in the whole story are "without
regret".
All the best,
Mattis Fishman