Characters | Significance and Meaning | Interpretations | Time and Place | Comprehension |
---|---|---|---|---|
What is Clay?
Who is Corporal Z?
|
What is to show to Esmé that he has lost control of his mind and his body as a result of the war and PTSD?
Why does Sergeant X spell out faculties in the closing paragraph?
|
What is up to your interpretation?
-The narrator's life has been destroyed by war -He failed to keep Esmé's promise
What does the ending mean?
|
What is April 1944?
When does the first flashback take place?
|
What is First Person?
What point of view is the first flashback in?
|
What is a Nazi propagandist and politician?
Who is Goebbels?
|
What is they are one in the same person?
What is Sergeant X allows the narrator to express the trauma from the war from a removed standpoint?
What is the relationship between the narrator and Sergeant X?
|
What is up to your interpretation?
-Realistic interpretation of Salinger's life -Exaggerated as the story is fiction/more contradictory in the narrator's emotional standpoint.
Is Sergeant X's story realistic or exaggerated?
|
What is
-Gaufurt, Bavaria? -Germany? -A few weeks after V-E Day?
When does the second flashback take place?
|
What is Third Person (Limited)?
What point of view is the second flashback in?
|
What is to protect their anonymity?
Why are Sergeant X and Corporal Z named as such?
|
What is to visit with his mother-in-law who may be dying/getting older?
Why doesn't the narrator go to Esmé's wedding?
|
What is up to your interpretation?
- Real life events made into a story for a real girl that the narrator met. -Possibly a figment of Sergeant X's imagination and the effects of PTSD
Are the flashbacks in the story real or made up?
|
What is North Africa?
Where did Esmé and Charles' father die?
|
What is Squalor?
What key term does Esmé want in her story that the narrator is going to write?
|
What is an unknown aristocratic or noble title?
What is Esmé's title?
|
What is her father was also in the military, and the wristwatch was a navigator's chronograph?
What is the narrator was also in the military? What is a sense of direction in the war?
What is the significance of Esmé's father's watch?
|
What is up to your interpretation?
-Esmé -PTSD -His inability to perform certain tasks like writing -His addiction to cigarettes/nicotine
Who or what reminds Sergeant X of his faculties during the war?
|
What is a church and/or a tea room?
Where does the narrator go in town in the first flashback?
|
What is a jazz singer?
What does Esmé want to be when she grows up?
|
What is fleeing human interaction and relationships, innocence, and/or consistency?
What does Esmé represent in the war?
|
What is to bring a comedic sense to the wedding? What is to stir up conversation or memories?
Why does the narrator want to cause Esmé's groom an "uneasy moment or two"?
|
What is up to your interpretation?
-Sergeant X may not be fully open with talking about events that involve the war with his wife -She may also know, and does not ant him to open old wounds from the war -If he is married, and she is getting married, they probably have already found their respective partners
Does the narrator's wife know about Esmé and their relationship, and does she want to stop him from going to Esmé's wedding?
|
What is Ohio?
Where does Esmé want to live when she grows up?
|
What is a crystal?
What broke on Esmé's wristwatch?
|