Seymour Glass

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Seymour Glass was the oldest of the children in J. D. Salinger's fictional Glass Family. A poet influenced by Taoism and Vedanta philosophy, Seymour — in typical Salinger style — was deeply intellectual and precocious.

[edit] Childhood

Seymour's closest family member was his younger brother Buddy Glass, who is the narrator of most of the stories about Seymour. Buddy always greatly admired his elder brother, even identifying him as the most intelligent and the "undefeatable champion talker" of the group. All of the children regularly appeared on the radio show "It's a Wise Child" under the pseudonym "Black." But it was only during Seymour's main days on the show (as Billy Black) that the question-and-answer format was changed primarily to a panel discussion. He earned a college degree by his early teens and was already a professor before he joined the military in his early twenties.

[edit] Adulthood

Seymour was married in June of 1942 to his girlfriend Muriel. He was often accused, especially by his in-laws, of not relating to anyone and of being slightly anti-social. On one occasion, when asked by his future mother-in-law as to what he saw himself doing after WWII was over, he responded by saying that he'd like to be a dead cat. This worried Muriel and her mother, though he never had the opportunity to clarify the remark's ties to a belief in Zen Buddhism, specifically that a dead cat is the most valuable of all things because it cannot be given a price.

More seriously, Muriel's family had considerable doubts about Seymour's sanity, believing him to be schizoid and a latent homosexual. To appease his wife and her family, Seymour agreed to be psychoanalysed, which his youngest brother Zooey Glass believed may have led to his death. Seymour committed suicide while he was on vacation with his wife in Florida in 1948, as detailed in the story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish."

Seymour's sexuality has been debated by many Salinger scholars. In A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Seymour has been remarked as being a pedophile, since his relationship with Sybil Carpenter is unusually intimate. On the other hand, many disagree with this statement, countering with the claim that Seymour may be asexual, and that he simply relates most to the purities of children. In 'Hapworth 16, 1924', Seymour writes about his "sensuality" as that of an adult, without adult genitals. More than that, he acclaims his and his father's "sensuality" as stronger than average. - He knows that not having sex with his fiancée Muriel (that is, not before their marriage) could be unusual today (in 1942!), and that this mere inactivity could lead anybody to worry about his sexual attitude. (As it led Ms Fedder, Muriel's mother to the guess he is latent homosexual.)

[edit] Appearances

Seymour looms large in many of the stories in the Glass family saga, notably Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters, Seymour: An Introduction, Franny and Zooey. The last published Salinger story Hapworth 16, 1924 (The New Yorker, June 19, 1965), is the only published story to be written in Seymour's first person narrative, and it records his experiences at camp as a seven-year-old.