He goes on to suggest that Franny might like to listen to him read this paper, something that she very obviously detests. Here, Lane Coutell, is speaking, bragging about the “A” he got on a paper.

I honestly thought it was going to go over like a goddam lead balloon, and when I got it back with this goddam ‘A’ on it in letters about six feet high, I swear I nearly keeled over.” “Anyway, that was the motif of the thing, so to speak-what I was trying to bring out in a fairly subtle way,” Lane said, very closely following the trend of his own conversation. Afer this, he leaves the elevator, goes into his room and then takes a “Ortgies calibre 7.65 automatic” out of his bag and shoots himself “through his right temple”.Īs another example of the way that language, crude or otherwise, can help paint an image of a character, take a look at these lines from “Franny and Zooey”: These lines come within the last few paragraphs of the story. Seymour’s frustration with his situation, inability to control his own emotions, and desire to connect with someone comes out all at once. He fought in WWII and is experiencing untreated PTSD. He and other members of his family are at a resort hotel and he’s recently returned, after being discharged, from the army. One of the most important members of Salinger’s fictional Glass family, Seymour, speaks these words in an elevator. “I have two normal feet and I can’t see the slightest God-damned reason why anybody should stare at them,” said the young man. The car doors opened and the woman got out without looking back. “Let me out here, please,” the woman said quickly to the girl operating the car. “But don’t be a God-damned sneak about it.” “If you want to look at my feet, say so,” said the young man. For example, take these lines from “A Perfect Day for Bananafish “. His most popular stories, such as “A Perfect Day for Bananafish ” and “Franny and Zooey” also contain examples of this style of writing. It was not only in The Catcher in the Rye that Salinger used colloquial diction.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger