"I have scars on my hands from touching certain people"
Item
Title
"I have scars on my hands from touching certain people"
Is Part Of
Dermatology
See all items with this value
Psychology
See all items with this value
English
See all items with this value
Description
"The words of Seymour Glass, eldest sibling of the Glass family – a lesser known creation of J.D. Salinger’s literary world. The story of this family of child geniuses, who appeared on a 1927 radio quiz show called 'It’s a Wise Child', is chronicled in three of his books – mostly centering on the relationship between the two eldest brothers, Buddy and Seymour. Salinger favours Seymour. He was the most brilliant and idiosyncratic of all the children and unfortunately, for the most part, only present as a memory – since he committed suicide, age 31.
Buddy reminisces about one specific Seymour moment: His mother urging him to see a psychiatrist and him telling her that he doesn’t need a head doctor – he needs a hand doctor or a dermatologist, whereupon he looks at his hands and tells her he has these scars – these discolourations on them – from touching certain people. Certain heads, certain colours and textures of human hair leave permanent marks on him. When he put his hand on his little sister Franny’s head when she was still in the carriage, it left a mark. Or with her twin brother, Zooey, when he was six or seven, during a spooky movie. He put his hand on Zooey’s head when he went under the seat to avoid watching a scary scene. It left a mark. Other things, too. Charlotte, the girl he was in love with, tried to run away from him once and he grabbed her dress. It left a permanent lemon-yellow mark on the palm of his right-hand (Salinger 1964:59). His hands were filled with these discolourations – these physical manifestations of his emotions. They became a type of medical condition. And he needed to cure it" (Liebenberg 2011: 91 - 93).
Salinger recounts the day of Seymour's suicide in a short story he later wrote, called 'A Perfect Day for Bananafish'.
Buddy reminisces about one specific Seymour moment: His mother urging him to see a psychiatrist and him telling her that he doesn’t need a head doctor – he needs a hand doctor or a dermatologist, whereupon he looks at his hands and tells her he has these scars – these discolourations on them – from touching certain people. Certain heads, certain colours and textures of human hair leave permanent marks on him. When he put his hand on his little sister Franny’s head when she was still in the carriage, it left a mark. Or with her twin brother, Zooey, when he was six or seven, during a spooky movie. He put his hand on Zooey’s head when he went under the seat to avoid watching a scary scene. It left a mark. Other things, too. Charlotte, the girl he was in love with, tried to run away from him once and he grabbed her dress. It left a permanent lemon-yellow mark on the palm of his right-hand (Salinger 1964:59). His hands were filled with these discolourations – these physical manifestations of his emotions. They became a type of medical condition. And he needed to cure it" (Liebenberg 2011: 91 - 93).
Salinger recounts the day of Seymour's suicide in a short story he later wrote, called 'A Perfect Day for Bananafish'.
Creator
J.D. Salinger
See all items with this value
Date Created
1964
Source
Salinger, J.D. 1964.
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction. UK, USA: Penguin Books.
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction. UK, USA: Penguin Books.
Resonances
Pathology Learning Centre
See all items with this value
Jane Yeats
See all items with this value
Jurgen Geitner
See all items with this value
Julia Rosa Clarke
See all items with this value
Gross Pathology
See all items with this value
post-mortem
See all items with this value
tragedy
See all items with this value
sadness
See all items with this value
medicine chest
See all items with this value
illness
See all items with this value
disease
See all items with this value
dermatology
See all items with this value
Seymour
See all items with this value
J.D. Salinger
See all items with this value
metonomy
See all items with this value
Between Subject and Object
See all items with this value
Chest: a botanical ecology
See all items with this value
heartache
See all items with this value
psychiatrist
See all items with this value
touching
See all items with this value
friendship
See all items with this value
brothers
See all items with this value
condition
See all items with this value
Contributor
Nina Liebenberg
