For Esmée - with Love and Squalor

For Esmé-with Love and Squalor

Main Characters:

Esmé is a thirteen-years-old girl who has straight ash-blonde hair of ear-length, an exquisite forehead and blasé eyes. She is bright and mature but quite cold and unmoved by some things like her mother’s death.

The narrator is an American soldier in the Second World War. He encounters Esmé in 1944 and suffers a post-traumatic stress disorder after the war.

Charles is Esmé’s little brother. He is described by her as brilliant but not always and with a violent temper.

Presentation of the novel:

The story begins when the narrator receives an invitation to a wedding in England, which he will not be able to attend because he had planned a visit to his mother-in-law. Knowing the bride who he has met six years ago, he decides to send her a few written notes.

Then the narrator gets back to April 1944. A group of Americans are in Devon, finishing training for the D-Day. It’s a rainy day and the narrator takes a solitary stroll into town. He finally enters a church and listens to a child choir practice. One of the girls in particular draws his attention. She is about thirteen and has a voice distinctly separate from the others.

 After leaving the church, the narrator ducks into an empty tearoom to escape rain. Not long after, the girl he had remarked, comes in with her little brother and her governess. Sensing his loneliness, she engages a conversation with him. He finds out that she is a bright, well-mannered and really mature young girl although a little cold They start to exchange about their history. And we learn her name is Esmé and that she and her five-years-old brother Charles are orphans. Both of their parents were killed during the war- their mother in the Blitz and their father in North Africa. We discover that the mainly and too big wristwatch she’s wearing, and which puzzles the narrator, is her father’s and that she has a sentimental value. They leave each other, Esmé promising to write letters to him, and him to publish a history for her.

The scene changes with a new point of view. The narrator is now called Sergeant X. (Anonymous, it could happen to everyone) He is stationed in Bavaria and has just leaved a field hospital where he had been treated for a nervous breakdown. But he still shows some symptoms of mental disorder “he felt his mind dislodge itself and teeter”. Caporal Z, surnamed Clay, a soldier who has served closely to him, comes in his room to talk and remarks his physical deterioration. After the departure of Clay, Sergeant X discovers in a bath of unopened letters a small package. It contains a letter from Esmé and Charles and their father’s wristwatch Esmé gives him as a talisman for the war.

Context:

The story happens during the Second World War, not long before the D-Day in England. Some American soldiers are already there, training to disembark.

Link to one of the notions:

We can maybe link it to Myths and Heroes. this story is about American soldiers, who are often shown as glorious heroes who have fought with all their heart to defend women and children. But soldiers weren’t really unbreakable men. By telling this kind of stories, America occults the devastating realities of the war. Salinger wished to speak not for the heroes America is describing but for those who still cope the horrible aspects and who suffers of post-traumatic stress disorder.

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