With Love And Squalor Analysis

For Esmé - With Love and Squalor
By J. D. Salinger

Questions About Youth:

1. Why is the narrator so taken by Esme? What is it about her character that fascinates him? 2. Youth is often depicted as a time of folly and poor judgment, but not here. How does Salinger characterize youth in this story? 3. In your opinion, what are the narrator’s feelings with regards to youth and childhood? 4. The narrator himself is a young man – how do you view his development of the course of the story?

“The strength, innocence, and resilience of childhood are the only things that can counteract the horrors of war in “For Esmé – With Love and Squalor.”

1. I believe Esmé takes the narrator aback due to her strikingly impressionable
Youth in regards to For Esmé - With Love and Squalor is depicted as a time of premature advancement, a time where the innocence of youth had been stolen by the pure destruction of the war. With her advanced vocabulary and maternal skills far beyond her years, Esmé illustrates an exceptionally mature young woman. I believe this coincides with the time and place, during the war children are forced to become a more mature version of themselves, they soon begin to forget about the true meaning of youth, forget what it really means to have a childhood. With the example of Esmé, as a result of the war she had lost both of her primary caregivers, her mother and father, and was forced into the maternal role at a very early stage in her life, “…but it was only when his sister spoke to him that he came around and applied the small of his back to his chair seat.” Esmé represents a extraordinarily mature, brave and courageous personification of youth. Yet Salinger contrasts Esmé’s character with her brothers, he represents a less serious aspect of childhood, the element of immaturity. He continued to cause chaos and stress upon all of his opposing characters; bursting into hysterics, unable to sit still, and creating tension by becoming upset once Sergeant X completed the punch line to his joke. Salinger represents various aspects of youth within this story but he mainly focuses on the idea of premature maturity, the removal of innocence, and how it affects one’s
The transition the protagonist makes within the duration of this story is substantial, yet impressive. Initially, Sergeant X was a quiet man who found beauty in the simplest ventures, a walk to town amidst the rain, a choir of children singing an unknown lullaby, and even a child whose voice was, “the-sweetest-sounding, the surest.” He had the ability to withhold a conversation with a young yet remarkably intelligent woman, to entertain a young boy who couldn’t bare to have his punch line discovered, and a love for writing. He was capable of observing the most detailed aspects of ones being, of taking pride in his work, and of feeling excitement. After his encounter with Esmé and her younger brother, he had experienced multiple years participating in tours, fighting until the war had finally ended. Subsequently, he endured a nervous breakdown which in turn was the climax of his post traumatic stress disorder, he became weak and without emotion; no hope for the future. He was unable to sustain a conversation with one of his closest friends, lost interest in all things involving ink and failed to see the beauty in life. He had lost all of his pride, and was almost ashamed of his actions within the war; he had become a completely different man simply due to the trials and tribulations of the battle he had fought, not only physically but psychologically as well. Although the sudden paradigm shift, once he sees his letter from Esmé he has a change of heart and realizes