Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover

I am currently reading, “Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters” by J.D. Salinger.  The story is on the day of Seymour Glass’s wedding in 1942.  The only member of the Glass family that can make it to the wedding is Buddy.  Buddy is on a three-day leave from the army so he can attend the wedding of his brother Seymour.  After a cough ridden train ride to New York for the wedding, Seymour ends up not showing up to his own wedding, leaving the bride, Muriel, in tears at the altar.  Buddy rides the train back with the enraged Matron of Honor who goes about how Seymour is a psycho, even after learning that Buddy is Seymour’s brother.  It later comes out that Seymour is probably suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from fighting in the war.  This explains some of his social issues and possibly why he left Muriel at the altar. 

Before I really get into this blog post, one thing that I found really interesting while reading this is that the characters of Muriel and Seymour appear in the short story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” in Nine Stories and in “Bananafish” Seymour does seem to suffer from PTSD.  This story might be years after “Roof Beam” in which case Seymour and Muriel do end up getting married, however at the end of “Bananafish” Seymour shoots himself in the head.  This strongly supports the fact that Seymour has PTSD, which then can explain some of his behavior in “Roof Beam” like ditching his own wedding.

I think that Salinger was trying to show the reader that you shouldn’t judge a person without knowing their whole story because they might have a serious issue that explains how they act or why they do things a certain way.  In this case it is Seymour and not showing up to his own wedding and everyone at the wedding seems very upset with him, however he might have some serious emotional and social problems from PTSD after serving in the war.