Universal religion in J. D. Salinger's Glass stories

Abstract

By placing a Zen koan as an epigraph to Nine stories (1953), J. D. Salinger implied that Zen Buddhism could provide his characters with something more than the alienation and malcontent they continually encounter and experience (themes that were overt in The Catcher in the Rye of 1951). Indubitably, the epigraph helped the reader view the stories in a different light and encouraged analysis from an Eastern perspective. Nevertheless, in "Franny", the first 'Glass' story to follow the collection, the spiritual emphasis is placed not on Zen Buddhism but, rather, the universality of religious principles. This thesis suggests that Salinger, having read The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna in 1952, became increasingly interested in its proposal of a Universal Religion, whereby all faiths led to the same place regardless of the path taken. Sri Ramakrishna and his disciple Swami Vivekananda championed this precept throughout their lives and are survived today by the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Centre in New York where Salinger himself studied. Through the Centre's syncretic approach to religion he was able to assimilate and unify Advaita Vedanta, raja yoga, jnana yoga, karma yoga, Taoism, Christian Mysticism and Zen Buddhism in his Glass Stories. Ergo, although obviously influenced by Zen Buddhism in the early fifties, it is concluded that Salinger's interest diversified to incorporate heterogeneous religious concerns. This thesis is primarily concerned with Salinger's eclectic spiritual ideals as evidenced in "A Perfect Day for Bananafish", "Franny", "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters", "Zooey", "Seymour: An Introduction", and "Hapworth 16,1924".