9 Stories

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorHigh School, 12th grade October 2001

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As a person's life progresses, emotional damage to a child will progress into emotional pain and suffering as an adult. If a child can not get through a stage in their childhood, the child's older self could be harmed. "A proper resolution of the conflicts will lead the child to progress past one stage and move on to the next. Failure to achieve a proper resolution, however, will make the child fixated in the present stage. The latter is believed to be the cause of many personality and behavioral disorders" ("Freud's psychosexual stages of development").

J.D. Salinger wrote short stories to experiment with different personality types under pressure. In each of the stories, Salinger's characters suffer emotional hardship. "Salinger's short stories are all variations on the theme of emotional estrangement"(________ 290). In "Down at the Dinghy" (1949), Salinger shows emotional pain through the eyes of a four year old boy.

Lionel is emotionally hurt by a comment made about his father though his mother and the reader are not aware of his problem. After the comment is made, Lionel becomes very upset and runs away to a safe haven on the family boat. Lionel's mother, Boo Boo, goes to find and comfort Lionel. Though Lionel's pain is intense, Boo Boo relieves the pain by comforting him with soft and kind words. By the end of the story, Lionel has overcome his emotional pain. In "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut"(1948), a parent child relationship forms again. In the story, Eloise and Mary Jane, two college friends, meet to reminisce old times. Ramona, Eloise's four year old daughter, is around the two while they are talking. As the evening progresses, Eloise seems to become more and more abusive towards Ramona. Eloise brow-beats Ramona for having an invisible friend named Jimmy Jimmerino who...