J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [203]
Flawlessness is a human concept, Seymour explains, while perfection is a divine condition. God is perfect, he argues, yet the world is full of famine and the death of children.* Using the logic that human beings cannot know the enormity of the nature of God or His creation, Seymour excuses the aspects of human action that Bunyan condemns as being weaknesses. He counters that Bunyan is too severe and that every aspect of human nature is part of God’s design, concluding that qualities perceived by society as being deeply flawed may well be part of God’s inscrutable plan and therefore perfect.
Seymour asks that his parents send a stuffed bunny to replace one that Buddy lost on the train to camp. In contrast to his own endless request for books, his brother seems to need the comfort of a stuffed animal while away from home. The request strikes the reader as being odd. If Seymour had asked for the stuffed animal at the beginning of the letter, readers would have thought nothing of it. But by the end of “Hapworth,” the reader’s perception of the children has changed and the desire of a five-year-old for a stuffed toy seems out of place.
Again, in “Hapworth,” nothing is completely solid. No opinion is held without reservation, even Seymour’s concept of God. Although he declares a “carte blanche” love for Jesus Christ, he questions the wisdom of God for allowing New Testament miracles to have taken place because, he argues, the absence of such events in the present day now fosters disbelief and encourages atheism. In the end, however, he resigns himself to the unknowable will of God and dedicates his life to God’s service.
In many ways “Hapworth” is a logical progression of Salinger’s work, a step in his spiritual journey. Seymour passes harsh judgment on the counselors and other campers, displaying a spiritual intolerance reminiscent of that of his sister Franny in her own story. The Glass brothers’ inability to bond with other campers because their values are so vastly different is evocative of the later complaint of their brother Zooey that he and Franny had become freaks because they were weaned on too much religion. Seymour’s condemnation of the adults at camp may recall the rebellion of Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, but there is a significant difference between Seymour and Salinger’s previous characters: Seymour, for all his holy intentions, fails to develop the level of compromise that allows Holden a measure of release. Nor does he perceive “the Fat Lady” in anyone around him. At Camp Hapworth, Seymour Glass has yet to learn the acceptance of Teddy McArdle or the lesson of indiscrimination that Buddy will in “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters.”
Obviously, Salinger in 1965 was still obsessed with the duality of human nature. Like the bulk of his writings, “Hapworth” examines human duality and addresses the conflict between spiritual and material forces. Salinger had clearly come to the conclusion that despite the inability of even the most enlightened and gifted of human beings to understand God’s plan, the will of God must be accepted nonetheless. In fact, to Seymour in “Hapworth,” although he does not understand the seemingly contrary nature of God’s creation—alternately priceless and sheer crap—it nonetheless makes him revere God more because it forces him to accept the will of God without question. “My God,” Seymour declares, “you are a hard one to figure out, thank God! I love you more than ever! Consider my dubious services everlastingly at your disposal!”
The camp infirmary becomes a kind of purgatory for Seymour Glass, a station where he contemplates his own dual nature and weighs the resulting choice between attempting