SOURCE: Cotter, James Finn. “A Source for Seymour's Suicide: Rilke's Voices and Salinger's Nine Stories.” Papers on Language and Literature 25, no. 1 (winter 1989): 83-98.

In the following essay, Cotter argues that Rainer Maria Rilke's The Voices is a source for Salinger's Nine Stories.

1

J. D. Salinger's short story, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” employs the traditional device of a surprise ending. Seymour Glass returns to his Miami hotel room, glances at his wife asleep on her bed, takes from his luggage a heavy-caliber German automatic, sits down on his bed, looks again at Muriel, and fires a bullet through his head. Not even Richard Cory's suicide has provoked more critical commentary. Why does Seymour shoot himself?

The number of reasons proposed for this denouement attests to the effectiveness of the surprise. Is Seymour no longer able to cope with the everyday world represented by Muriel and her mother? Is...