BR 2-07: Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut

I read a short story that is printed in Nine Stories, which was written by J. D. Salinger in 1953. I read a first story of this before. I feel that this novel is difficult to understand for me as same as A Perfect Day for Bananafish.

Eloise and Mary has been friend since they were high school students. One day, Mary visits to Eloise. They talk about themselves each other during drinking highball. They are still close friend like their school days even now.

Eloise has a child, whose name is Ramona, however Mary doesn’t. Eloise has married but she cannot forget a memory of a person who was loved by her. His name is Walt. He had died already. Eloise tries to forget about him. However her child keeps her to remember about him. Her child has a close friend. It is unreal. This action makes her irradiated.

Which make me interesting is Eloise’s action when she talks about Walt to Mary. They are, "Eloise finished her drink and replaced the empty glass upright on her chest." (Salinger, 1958, p. 44) And after she finishes to talk about it, “She put her hand around the empty glass on her chest to steady it.”(Salinger, 1958, p. 45) Why does she put an empty glass when she talks about him? And I associate the word “glass” with Seymore Glass who appears in A Perfect Day for Bananafish. I learned about Salinger in my university. Salinger wrote about Glass family as some novels.

As same as A Perfect Day for Bananafish, one of character face to someone’s death. Does the book Nine Stories use someone’s death as its theme? I don’t read other seven stories so I don’t know yet. However I try to remember about it during reading other seven stories.

[300 words]

Reference

Salinger, D (1958) Nine Stories [kodansha English Library] Tokyo: kodansha.