Themes:

The Garden Party:

Death and life: death cannot be conquered by cancelling a party, pleasure deserves protection for it is rarely
found. The education Laura receives avoids initiating her to the realities of life, such as poverty and death,
presented as experiences lived by people outside her privileged social class. This leaves her unprepared to
face these facts, leaving her confused and inconsistent.

When she sees the dead man, she describes what she sees as “peaceful”, “wonderful”, “beautiful”. This is a
moment of epiphany, in which she realizes that things like “garden-parties and baskets” are meaningless.
Although he lacked the opportunity to have the sort of life people like Laura and her family cherish, the man,
has transcended issues of social divisions. He is at present in a world to which everybody will sooner or later
go, which finally makes death, the universal equalizer, conceivable as beautiful.

Social classes: When she meets the workmen, she realized they were very nice and ended up wishing they
could be her friends. She was impressed by the one who smelled the lavender, compared him to the boys she
knows, and thought she would get on much better with men like these. With this experience, she ends up
realizing that not being allowed to be friends with them was “all the fault of these absurd class distinctions”.

Before meeting them, she was worried about having a piece of bread and butter in her hand, fearing to be
thought childish. But a few minutes later, she sees the very same bread and butter in a very different light,
taking a “big bite” of it in front of the workmen as a rebellious manifestation that she “despises stupid
conventions”. She would unable to integrate with others outside that circle when confronted with poverty and
death, the harsh facts of life. Mrs Sheridan concentrates exclusively on her own social circle, expecting Laura
to do the same. Lack of true warmth or inner feelings. It is only Laura who perceives the heartlessness of going
on with the plans for the party.

Charity: the conception of charity: it can be deemed an expression of some sort of womanly sympathy for
other, by receiving these, the widow in grief, whose lack or level of income precludes her from feeding or
ensuring a minimum standard of living for her orphaned children, will become hyperaware of how economically
and hierarchally disadvantaged she is, or Mrs Sheridan may be sending Laura off to the poor cottage as a
reward for the performance she made at the party.

Victorian and social values: the Victorian socio-moral values restrained women by means of influencing their
way of looking at life. Victorian women, as a general rule, had to learn and practice ¨to give orders to servants¨,
to be excellent nurturing children and at social arts like arranging flowers, giving parties, and choosing hats,
and were supposed to go through a little education: music, literature and languages, just to make them
accomplished ladies, a ¨perfect wife, perfect mother and perfect housekeeper¨, the three requirements to make
an ideal woman. They had a patriarchal ideological system which conditioned women to think like men, identify
with their world view, not only accept but also internalize their values, and supports the system that legitimates
the interests of the dominant group. Laure must follow her mother footsteps which ultimately has the effect of
protecting patriarchy.

The consequence of Laura´s education is to make her lose the sense of security and feeling of certainty and
her identity and place in society, condemning her to live in an unstable world, in an unstable state of mind. The
preparations for the party create the ¨opportunity¨ for her to translate the theoretical education she has been
given by her elders into action. Laura has been in the process of forming a self and little by little that self has
been moulded into the socially prescribed shape. This type of education, bolstering the patriarchal ideological
system outright, has a long story. In all probability, her mother went through the same stages which
conditioned her to think like men, identify with their world view, not only accept but also internalize their values,
and buttress the system that legitimates the interests of the dominant group. She must follow her mother´s
footsteps which ultimately has the effect of protecting patriarchy.

Materialism: it all begins in an optimistic mood ¨good things to eat, lovely things to wear, wonderful expensive
flowers to enjoy¨. The preparations for the party is Laura´s ¨first grown-up affair¨. With the hat Mrs Sheridan, in
service of patriarchy try to mute or partially silence her daughter. Laura is enchanted by her own reflection, her
face framed by the lovely hat. She remembers her own community and her place in it.

Mother-daughter relationship: innate inclination to be a copy of her mother, which can be accounted for with
reference to ¨the mirror stage in identity formation that designates the mother´s face as the child first
reflection¨. ¨When the average girl studies her face in the mirror she is reassuring herself that the mother-
image is there and that the mother can see her and that the other is en rapport with her¨. Laura essays to
imitate her role model, who is a woman conceded a position in the household by the one/s in real control of the
affairs, a strategy to integrate an oppositional or potentially oppositional individual into the system so that she
would rise no objection to the preservation of the status quo. The daughter resorts to role playing, making an
attempt to give a few directions to the people around who she felt could reasonably assume would love
obeying.

Nevertheless, while trying to exercise the restricted authority descending from her mother, she loses face. She
mimics her mother´s voice, like a ventriloquist. But she sounds “so fearfully affected that she is ashamed” of
sounding unconvincing.

Mrs Sheridan, the major influence on Laura, can change and control Laura´s behaviour, which is to speak, like
teaching an animal to do tricks not part of its normal behaviour.

A Perfect Day for Bananafish:

Appearance: We have many instances of Muriel being too conscious of her own and others’ appearance.

Allienation: We can see that Muriel´s parents want to isolate her from Seymour and they offer to pay her a
lovely cruise.
Communication: we can see that neither Muriel nor her mother finishes sentences because the other
interrupts. Muriel and Seymour barely talk and in the case of Sybil and her mother, her mother doesn’t
understand her.

Consumerism: When Saymour tells Sybil about the bananafishes, he says that “they swim into a hole where
there’s a lot of bananas and once they get in “they behave like pigs”. They can eat up to 78 bananas. After
eating so much, they can’t get through the hole again, so they die. This symbolises greedy, consumerist
people who get a lot more than they need; they are never fully satisfied. And that is exactly what kills them.
Muriel is concerned with looking fashionable, painting her nails and judging other for their appearance (judging
the dress of another woman).

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place:

Meaning of life: Hemingway believes that if life is nothing, then we have to give it meaning by making authentic
choices. We should always cherish the little havens of delight and comfort, like the Spanish café, that allow us
to escape the physical drudgery and spiritual emptiness of life. The 3 characters makes us think about the
existential question from 3 different perspectives.

Despair: Although the café is undoubtedly a clean, well-lighted place, the old man sits "in the shadow the
leaves of the tree made against the electric light".

Parodying the Lord's Prayer with the Spanish word nada, he tells us that religion means nothing to the old
waiter anymore. Apparently, he used to be religious, because he knows the prayer by heart, but now he can’t
find hope in religion.

The old waiter can empathise with the old man at the bar. He knows what it feels like “not to want to go to bed”
and to need a light for the night”.

Old vs young people: The young waiter is selfish; he is the one who wants to close the café early to be home
before 3. Also, he does not seem to value the company of a wife who is waiting for him at home.

On the other hand, the old waiter is more composed, less hurry and can empathise with the old man at the bar.
He reflects upon life, understand human predicament, sympathizes with problems of old age. They are not
confident, like the young waiter, but they “need a light for the night”. They suffer from insomnia. Maybe they
don’t want to go to sleep in the darkness because they are afraid of death. As these men are older, they can
see death closer.

The young waiter claims to have everything when the old one ironically says ¨you have youth, confidence, and
a job. You have everything¨ and the young one asks ¨what do I lack?¨ meaning that all these are essential.

The young waiter find the old man ¨nasty a nasty thing¨, the old waiter finds him ¨clean¨, one who drinks
without ¨spilling¨.
Suicide: The man at the café wanted to commit suicide because “he was in despair”. Maybe he couldn’t think
of another solution, or maybe he was tired of trying to solve his problems.

Loneliness: The man who wanted to commit suicide had at least one niece who looks after him, and he cared
about him enough to cut him down. But still, he felt lonely. He used to have a wife, but not anymore. Maybe
they broke up, or maybe she died.

The Spanish café always boasted of a friendly atmosphere, where "light, cleanliness and order" stand against
the "dark chaos of society". There lonely people could find warmth in togetherness and at the same time drink
alone.

Materialism: The importance the young waiter attributes to money is shown in the first short exchange he has
with the other waiter. The young tells the other about the drunk man who wanted to commit suicide because he
was in despair. When the older waiter asked the reason for it, he said “Nothing. He has plenty of money”. To
him, having money equals not having problems.

Also, the man who has a lot of money seems very miserable, gets drunk every day and tries to kill himself. This
tells us that money couldn’t buy happiness, at least in his case.