The Aestheticist Epiphanies of J. D. Salinger: Bright-Hued Circles, Spheres, and Patches; "Elemental" Joy and Pain

Strangely, no attempt has yet been made to find a pattern that can unite epiphanies of characters in works of J. D. Salinger. books and articles about him that have appeared in last thirty-five years include only a single item with in title, and even there word is used in a loose and general way. [1] Sources and parallels for Salinger's literary epiphanies have been sought in many religious traditions. Picking up hints provided by recommended home reading of the Upanishads and Diamond Sutra and Eckhart that two older Glass boys, Seymour and Buddy, urged on Franny and Zooey (Franny and Zocey 60 (FZ hereafter]), critics have looked for influences and analogues in Hinduism (Alsen), Taoism (Antonio), Zen (Goldstein and Goldstein, Zen), and Christianity (Panichas, Slabey). [2] But such references to other people's imaginings cannot reveal--may even distract from--what is distinctive about Salinger's own vision, epiphanic pattern that underlies his chara cters' moments of revelation. These moments are nonsectarian. The thing with Franny is strictly nonsectarian, Zooey says at one point (FZ 95), and although there is an aura of seer (Zooey's own self-characterization [FZ 140]) about all Glass siblings and even about Holden Caulfield, type of seer they all embody at privileged moments is modern post-Wordsworthian, secularized, and exploratory kind. Salingeris a gifted maker of modern literary epiphanies that need to be investigated for unique pattern they reveal. A useful beginning has been made in a few studies that focus, in rather isolated fashion, on certain favored objects: Holden's hat has been studied in terms of his psychological history (Vanderbilt, Roper), and Phoebe's carrousel has been compared to its partial source in Rilke (Stone, McCort). But only a comprehensive look at Salinger's epiphanic pattern can offer what reader of such a skillful post-Wordsworthian inward quester would like to have: portrait of a distinctive epiphanic sensibility. In a recent book (Patterns of Epiphany), I worked out a method for studying distinctive epiphany patterns of writers and applied it to a series of nineteenth-century authors. Here, I will apply method to epiphanies of Salinger. My guiding assumption is that epiphanies produced by any given writer will manifest a pattern unique to that writer. I define an epiphany in general as a moment in a literary work that affects reader as (1) intense, (2) expansive in meaning (that is, seeming to mean more than such a brief experience would have any right to mean), and (3) mysterious (its resonance or vibrancy exceeding any apparent explanation offered in author's text). [3] In creating epiphanies, authors work with contents I have found discussed in work of French phenomenological theorist Gaston Bachelard. From Bachelard, I derive three basic components of epiphanic patterns: elements (in ancient sense: earth, air, fire, water); patterns of motion (irrespective of whatever it is tha t moves); and shapes (most commonly, geometric), together with certain recurrent features that are occasionally linked to above (thus, in one Salinger epiphany color green is linked to earth in springtime, but patches of bright, pure color appear often, without requiring any elemental cause). Having identified in a writer these distinctive components, I next locate author's epiphany. paradigm is one epiphany that manifests author's recurrent pattern most completely and vividly. Thereafter, I study pattern in its less elaborate variant forms and note, where appropriate, implications (psychoanalytical insights, for example) that pattern may suggest. In Salinger, epiphanies usually involve a combination of two or more elements, but one of these sometimes will be suggested only vaguely by a color-link (as mention of a gold medallion may suggest fiery sun). …