Sybil's mother appears briefly: after applying suntan lotion to her daughter's back, she tells her to "run and play" on the beach while she goes back to the hotel for a martini. Like Muriel, Mrs. Carpenter is more interested in her own pleasures than in truly making contact with the innocent person whom she has been placed in charge.
As her first name suggests, Sybil is a seer or prophet-like character, who is able to "see" the bananafish that Seymour describes to her during their swim. Her opening words ("See more glass") also suggest her ability to perceive the deeper meaning of experience, a quality that many of Salinger's child characters possess—and one that many of his adult characters lack. (Her mother's reaction to her precocious insight is to tell.....
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