Franny and Zooey
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J.D. Salinger's novel Franny and Zooey shows the redemptive power of family and love in the life of a sister and brother. the plot of the book is simple: Franny, the younger sister of Zooey, has come home unexpectedly from college after suffering a nervous breakdown, and, as a result of her interchanges with Zooey, she finds some measure of peace and acceptance of herself and others. The structure of the book is similarly simple: Franny has a long conversation with her soon-to-be-ex boy friend; Zooey has a long conversation with his and Franny's mother; and Zooey and Franny have a long conversation, which includes a section in which Zooey pretends to be their older and wiser brother Buddy, who is in fact the narrator of the book, or at least the "Zooey" section. Those extended conversations comprise the entire novel, slowly but surely advancing Franny's awakening to a more tolerant and loving religious outlook than the one which possesses her at the beginning of the book. The theme of the novel is that the spiritual life is not a matter of judging others, as Franny does as she tries to live up to the Biblical call for ceaseless prayer. As other members of the Glass family have done before her, Franny has become influenced by a book called The Way of the Pilgrim. The book is about a pilgrim who travels on foot through Russia looking for the answer to the puzzle of how a person prays without ceasing. Franny explains the story of the pilgrim's quest at length to her shallow b
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han "a sort of prose home movie, and those who have seen the footage have strongly advised me against nurturing any elaborate distribution plans for it" (47). Buddy also notes the difficulties inherent in the subject matter, and the protest against it lodged by none other than Zooey himself:
He feels that the plot hinges on mysticism, or religious mystification--in any case, he makes it very clear, a too vividly apparent transcendent element of sorts, which he says he's worried can only expedite, move up, the day and hour of my professional undoing (48).
Salinger's attempt to head off criticism of the book is unnecessary, in this reader's view, for the novel does precisely what the author--and Buddy--intend it to do, which is to chronicle, in gradually building detail, the awakening of the protagonist Franny to the truth behind the search for spiritual enlightenment. That truth has to do not merely with the repetition of a prayer, but rather with the love for oneself and others that comes from any successful spiritual quest.
When the reader first encounters Franny, she is apparently in love with Lane, but it is clear before long that this is not love at all. Franny simply wants to be in love and/or believes that being in lo
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Zooey Franny, Catcher Rye, Franny Zooey, Jesus Prayer, Christ Buddy, Fat Lady, Finally Zooey, spiritual life, fat lady, nervous breakdown, ceaseless prayer, JD Salinger's, York Bantam, life ceaseless prayer, search spiritual enlightenment, lady , book pilgrim, buddy narrator, boy friend, ah buddy, mother zooey franny, glass family franny, fat lady , jesus prayer,
Approximate Word count = 1374
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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