It is said with great truth that "excess of everything is harmful". This quote is confirmed in the short story A Perfect Day For Bananafish through the example given by Seymour about banana fever to bananafish. This story involves many characters such as Seymour, Sybil, Muriel and Mother. Muriel is a round character in this story, she is a cute and curious worldly woman, immovable in the superficial and materialistic world. Furthermore, this fiction is a good symbol to represent the worst effects of the war on the general public, especially on Seymour. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayFirst, Muriel is a girl who attaches great importance to her appearance and that is why “for a ringing phone she dropped exactly nothing”” (3-4) and continued to do things with your nails. She is less concerned about Seymour's mental condition and this is represented when, she didn't pay attention to the doctor in the hotel when he asked her the weather, "Seymour has been sick or something" and when the mother asks her the reason behind the doctor's chat she replied "I don't know, mum, I guess because he's so pale and all" (10). She also focuses on the doctor's wife's dress and says, "his wife was horrible" (10) and continues to comment on her dress. When Sybil asks Seymour where Muriel is, Seymour says, “She could be any one of a thousand places. At the hairdresser. To have her hair dyed mink. Or making dolls for poor children, in his room” (17). Muriel elicits nothing but contempt from Seymour presumably since he returned home from the war, although she is not overly concerned with his behavior, even though he calls her "Miss Spiritual Tramp 1948" (7). If she had not been materialistic and did not worry about her husband, at least she should have accompanied Seymour everywhere on the trip and driven the car herself. But she wasn't worried about Seymour at all, so she let him drive even after learning what Seymour had done with her father's car. If she had cared about Seymour, maybe she wouldn't have lost her forever. Furthermore, Seymour is intelligent but psychologically damaged by the war and an unrepentant outsider among his wife, his wife's family, the guests of the Florida resort, and society. generally. He suffers from mental disorders and this is demonstrated when his mother says: "Did he try to do that strange thing with the trees?" (6). This shows that he might have had a drastic experience with trees during the war because no person can do anything without a reason. Also, the mother talks about something, "trying to do with grandma's chair?" (11). This says that he did many things that were not normal. Indeed, in the elevator he got angry with the women who were looking at the floor and Seymour shouted at her, telling her that she has “two normal feet” (26). Furthermore, he killed little Sybil's innocence by kissing her foot at the end of the beach scene. He is so stressed out about his life that at the end of the story he kills himself. He actually compares himself to the example he gave Sybil about bananafish, a type of fish that eats a lot of bananas and can't get out of the body and dies there with banana fever. In reality, he is comparing the fish to himself and kills himself because he is overloaded with stress due to the war and finally frees himself from the trauma. Please note: this is just a sample. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Simply put, through his written work, Salinger studies his social condition: the United States in the post-World War II period. In.