"... In 1976 I wrote a story called "Teddy At The Pool" in which I clarify the ending to Salinger's story in the only way that makes sense to me.The question is: what happens at the end of Salinger's story? One critic summarizes the standard interpretation this way: "In another well-known story in the collection called “Teddy,” a jealous sister pushes a child prodigy into an empty swimming pool. Here the little genius has anticipated and even welcomes his own death." (Maxwell Geismar, “The Wise Child and the New Yorker School of Fiction”). My interpretation is completely opposite from this! I believe in the ending of Salinger's story, Teddy pushes his sister into a full swimming pool (!) and no one dies.Wow. Talk about a difference. Why do I believe I'm right and all these literary critics are wrong? Because they took Salinger's bait (he's a Zen clown, after all). All the evidence is in the story, as it must be.Here's the first question: is the swimming pool full or empty? What we know from the story is this: the story occurs not on the usual day for draining and cleaning the pool. That's clear enough. Then how does it suddenly become empty? Only because Teddy, in telling a story, says, in effect, Let's say this was the day they cleaned the pool and it was empty. He needs an empty pool to make his point. But it is clear it is not the cleaning day. There simply is no justification for believing the pool is empty unless you believe that just because Teddy, in telling a story, says Let's pretend it's the cleaning day, it suddenly becomes the cleaning day in fact. This is ridiculous. The pool is full. There is no rational alternative.So if the pool is full, what happens? We know we hear a girl scream. We know it is Teddy's sister who screams. Moreover, Salinger gives us the clear definitive image: the sound of her voice is reverberating between tiled walls. Where are tiled walls? Above the water level of a swimming pool. In other words, her head is within this space, which is to say, just above the water level. We know she can't swim. She herself is in the water, screaming her bloody head off. How did she get there? Teddy pushed her. Why? Because he has emotions after all. He spends a lot of time arguing about the inappropriateness of putting emotions into things that don't have them, which is what happens in a lot of poetry, and Teddy tries to put himself above all that. But guess what? Despite his genius, he's an emotional being after all, he loses it, gets tired of his snotty sister, and in a spontaneous moment of emotion, pushes her into the full pool, full because it's not the cleaning day.This is what the story is about. The evidence in the story can have it no other way. Salinger, the Zen clown, the superb craftsman, knows that a simplistic view will jump at Teddy's explanation (which makes for a boring story, the protagonist telling us the ending ahead of time!), he's cynical enough to suspect, I think, many will do just this -- but his story has a rich complexity and a complete twist at the end, all perfectly and clearly set up for the careful reader. It's a brilliant and extraordinary story. The standard critical reading, in contrast, turns it into a predictable, didactic, boring lesson in eastern philosophy. No way. This is great stuff, and Salinger knows exactly what he is doing. He knows, like any good storyteller knows, that the old cliche is true, that actions speak louder than words. What Teddy says is one thing but what he does is another. (http://cdeemer2007.blogspot.com/2007/01/salingers-stories.html)
Ir dar vienas: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2455/is_2_35/ai_83585368
The reputation of J. D. Salinger rests largely on two relatively short works: The Catcher in the Rye and Nine Stories. The Nine Stories collection is brilliant, but it is seemingly marred by the final story, "Teddy." Salinger himself seems to dismiss the story. In what can be read as his own commentary, Salinger, through his arch, uncertain disguise as Buddy Glass, in Seymour--An Introduction, calls "Teddy" "an exceptionally Haunting, Memorable, unpleasantly controversial, and thoroughly unsuccessful short story" (205). Critics have generally agreed, objecting particularly to the seemingly contrived character of Teddy who claims that he is a 10-year-old perfect master, equipped with clairvoyance, and to the ambiguity of the conclusion, where it is not entirely clear what happens. (1)
But despite these seemingly well-founded objections, I will argue that the story is highly successful--indeed deeply moving--when we understand that "Teddy" is the story not of a cool and detached mystical prodigy, but of an unloved, frightened 10-year-old. Teddy has reacted defensively to an exploitative adult world by intuitively developing the persona of the mystic and clairvoyant both to gain the love he desperately needs and, paradoxically, to distance himself from his uncaring family and the grown-up world. Although critics have in general taken straight the premise that Teddy is indeed a little swami and analyzed in depth the importance of Zen to this story and to Salinger generally, it is only when we peel away the overlay of mysticism that the story becomes coherent and moving--and only then does "Teddy" become a valid and satisfactory conclusion to the Nine Stories collection. We will see, however, that the mystic elements of the story are indeed crucial, although not in the way that critics have suggested.
What has happened is this: in defensive reaction to the egotism, lovelessness, and incessant hostility of his parents toward each other and toward their children, and reinforced by his sense of the vulgarity, selfishness, and materialism of grown-up life, Teddy has instinctively felt his way to creating his persona of the mystic savant. That is, based on his precocious acquaintance (perhaps through Allen Watts and Dr. Suzuki?) in Eastern philosophy, he has convinced himself (and some of the grown-up world) of his mystic powers. (2) The benefits of this disguise to Teddy are several: not only can he withdraw from his parents, and the adult world more generally, and ward off feelings of anxiety and depression that any 10 year old might experience in his difficult family situation--he can also vent his feelings of anger toward them through his pose of studied responsibility and tolerant acceptance of their faults. He can feel distanced from a frightening world, sought-after, superior. He can believe that he has control of his 10-year-old world. His disguise of perfect master (although extreme) has affinities with the defensive use of the imagination by other children in the Nine Stories collection: Romona's imaginary lover and defender Jimmy in "Uncle Wiggley in Connecticut," the precocious adult-like attitude of Esme, and the pretentious self-presentation of De Daumier Smith.
Thus the story "Teddy" works in two ways, both to portray Salinger's characteristic child victim (and thus it forms a satiric comment on the adult world), and also to create an interesting and credible study of the way in which a 10-year-old has intuitively defended himself against the ego, anger, and indifference that his parents and the adult world have inflicted upon him. In its portrayal of the underloved child, "Teddy" embodies the Salinger masterplot as seen in Catcher and the other stories of Nine Stories.
Yet Salinger makes another, highly important use of the mysticism Teddy explains and advocates. The doctrine of love he preaches represents a valid and necessary response to the world and suggests the author's putative answer to the problems seen throughout Nine Stories and, indeed, all of his published fiction. In reaction to the harshness of American life, it is necessary to return acceptance, tolerance, and love. (...)
Teddy's doctrine of love is both defense and valid response to the crummy world. As such, it is a satisfactory conclusion to the Nine Stories, all of which dramatize the difficulties of "being born in an American body."
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