• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1512 0

Returning downstairs, she wakes up her friend. Sobbing, she implores Mary Jane to recall a dress that Eloise had liked in college. In her parting line, she pleads with her friend to confirm that she had once been a “nice girl.”16 The lines are a powerful recollection of Eloise’s former sincerity, a genuineness that she has sacrificed for the approval of others. The power of these words lies not in the event itself but in Eloise’s sudden recognition of what she has lost and what she has become. Salinger’s message is clear. What readers witness through “Uncle Wiggily” is a tug-of-war between reality, with all its imperfections, and the false illusion of the suburban dream.

• • •

Salinger’s next New Yorker story, “Just Before the War with the Eskimos,” is an exploration of division; about barriers between people and between themselves and their dreams. It is existential in nature and revolves around the rescue of Ginnie Mannox from her drift toward alienation. An allegory rich in metaphor and symbolism, “Eskimos” is more parable than tale and reveals a spiritual exploration within the author as Salinger sought release from the pain of depression and answers to questions about life and the nature of mankind. Significantly, it is the first story in three years in which readers leave the protagonist better off than when they first encounter her.

At the beginning of the story, readers are introduced to the character of Ginnie Mannox, who, while playing tennis with her schoolmate Selena Graff, is secretly contemptuous of her. Ginnie is cynical, selfish, and uncaring. Clearly, something has happened that has hardened her. Seeking reimbursement for a taxi fare, Ginnie travels with Selena to the Graffs’ upscale apartment. There she meets Selena’s brother, Franklin, an unassuming but maladjusted twenty-four-year-old who is out of place in ordinary society. Franklin has cut his finger. He offers Ginnie half of his chicken sandwich. He also provides Ginnie with the awareness of her own separation and increasing alienation.

A transformation occurs within Ginnie through her conversation with Franklin, which plays out like a game of tennis. Franklin is bitter and antagonistic, yet somehow Ginnie comes to maturity through their discussion. Exactly how is a matter of interpretation. It may be that she is jolted into recognizing her own alienation by observing Franklin’s pitiful state of estrangement or that she gains the insight to see beyond Franklin’s hostile exterior and perceive the goodness within him. Either way, Ginnie becomes a better person through her connection with Franklin and finds a rebirth of faith within the obscurity of his misfit character.

That acquisition is represented by the chicken sandwich Franklin gave her, which Ginnie rediscovers in her pocket once on the street. Confronted with the choice of discarding or retaining it, she returns it to her pocket. Salinger then forces readers to reevaluate the story with the last line: “A few years before, it had taken her three days to dispose of the Easter chick she had found dead on the sawdust in the bottom of her waste-basket.”17

In a story strewn with Christian symbolism, the Easter chick had lain for three days before Ginnie finally accepted that it would not rise from the dead. When discarded, it took with it her innocent trust and faith. Franklin has offered her that long-awaited resurrection as she once again begins to believe in the value of others as well as her own worth.

“Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut” was published on March 20, and “Just Before the War with the Eskimos” appeared on June 5. Readers scratched their heads over both stories but were delighted nonetheless. These were “New Yorker stories” written in the New Yorker style, described by the poet Dorothy Parker as being “urbane, clever, and absolutely well-written.” With these successes, Jerry Salinger was embraced by the New Yorker family and would henceforth be expected to match expectations and to conform to the New Yorker doctrine.

*It has been reported that The New Yorker paid Salinger $30,000