Nine Stories Character Comparison

The central idea of the book Nine Stories that I would like to write about is the idea that the people in these stories are good people going through hard times and are having trouble dealing with life. In looking at all the characters in each story, they all relate to each other the sense that they are good people, leading the average normal life with families and jobs or schooling but they are each going through personal struggles that life is offering them and they are having trouble dealing with it. In some cases, the character in the story fails to realize that they are struggling, however their actions lead the reader to believe otherwise.

Two characters I believe are similar to one another are Seymour in "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and Seargeant X in "For Esme - With Love and Squalor". Both men are dealing with the difficult and devastating after effects of being in the war, and they realize how much their lives have changed and what the war has done to them mentally. Seymour is a young man in a state of unhappiness, based on the idea that he has already gone to see a psychiatrist and the incident with the car that was mentioned early on in the story. He is married to Muriel, who seems to be neglectful and makes light of the extremely delicate mental state that Seymour is in. As she's talking with her mother, you see the concern coming from her mother while Muriel pays little attention to her mother's concerns. Perhaps in every day life, Muriel brushes off Seymour, leaving him to feel an emptiness and void of companionship and conversation which he gets from Sybil. He forms a bond with Sybil which I feel is based on her innocence, her acceptance of him and the attention that she shows him, something which he is lacking at home. I believe that Seymour realizes his time with Sybil is coming to and end when she mentions that her father is coming in the next day. Unable to deal with the lonliness and loss of companionship, he took his life.

Sergeant X is the solider in "For Esme - With Love and Squalor who becomes mentally ill after the war. The man, X, meets Esme in a coffee shop just to the outskirts of a military base. X had previously noticed her in a church during a choir practice and seemed captivated by her. Later, when she meets him in the coffee shop she approaches him and begins talking to him. They have a casual yet deep conversation about their histories. X is extremely impressed with her large vocabulary that possibly exceeded his own. X notices the oversized manly watch that was around this small girl's wrist and learns that she lived a very difficult life when she replies solemnly looking at the wrist watch and explains that her deceased father had given it to her and that it had great sentimental value. They continue their

...