Franny and Zooey Character Analysis of Franny
Gokce Aysen Akp? nar 05. 11. 2012 Is Love for Yourself Possible? In J. D. Salinger’s book “Franny and Zooey”, the character Franny is a 20-year-old college girl who comes from a very loving and intellectual family. She has a boyfriend who is handsome and in love with her. Moreover, she used to act in a TV show named “It’s a Wild Child” with her siblings when she was a child. To put it in a nutshell, it can be thought that she is supposed to be a very happy young lady; however, she is not. Actually, Franny has lots of reasons not to be happy with her life.
When we look at the very beginning of the ‘Franny’ section, we see some gestures and mimics of Franny indicating that the relationship between her and Lane is based on appearances: “’I’ve missed you. ’ The words were no sooner out than she realized that she didn’t mean them at all. Again with guilt, she took Lane’s hand and tightly, warmly laced fingers with him. ” In this quotation, we see that Franny emphasizes the word ‘missed’ on purpose as if she wants to force herself to believe that she really missed him. The next sentence also supports this.
She doesn’t miss Lane, she says so only because those are the right words to say at that time. After realizing her own pretentious affection, she feels like these fake words are noticed by Lane and she holds Lane’s hand tightly to cover this pretentious act. Another quotation that depicts Franny’s before-breakdown condition is when Lane tells Franny that she is perspiring a little and Franny tries to find her Kleenex branded tissues in her bag: “Franny brought her handbag up to table level, opened it, and began to rummage through it. ‘I have some Kleenex somewhere. … Her handbag was a crowded one. To see better, she began to unload a few things and place them on the tablecloth, just to the left of her untasted sandwich. ” When we look at her actions in this quotation, firstly we realise that she does not ‘look for’ the tissues, she ‘rummages through’ it. Lane’s realization of her perspiration apparently annoys her, so she wants to get rid of the sweat on her forehead immediately. Also, the emphasize on the ‘just to the left of her untasted sandwich’ indicates her physical restless next to her spiritual one.
When it comes to the Franny, we can say that the objective of the character is to protect herself from the artificial environment in her department, in the play she quit, shortly, everyone around her. She finds everyone too pretentious, including her boyfriend Lane whom she calls ‘section man’. Although she loves literature and theatre, she is afraid to turn into someone pretentious just like the others, as a result, she tries to restrain herself from these people. In the respect of the superobjective of this character, Franny tries to find her own resurrection in a spiritual way.
She feels overwhelmed from the pretentious people around her and with the help of the green book, she believes she can find relief. The character Franny tries to fit in the society she is in which she thinks of as superficial. We can say that this is the most obvious goal of this character. While she tries to fit in, she cannot neglect the parts in people which she feels disgusted by. This is the main obsticle she comes across. Another obsticle could be her not being able to accept her elder brothers’ previous advice. However, after talking to Zooey thinking that she talks to Buddy, she finally finds the ultimate relief.
