Glass family

Encyclopedia : G : GL : GLA : Glass family

The Glass family is a group of fictional characters that have been featured in a number of J.D. Salinger's short stories. All but one of the Glass family stories were first published in The New Yorker; several of them have been collected and published in the volumes Nine Stories; Franny and Zooey; and .

Members

The members of the Glass family are listed here, from eldest to youngest:

Bessie and Les Glass: Retired vaudeville performers and parents of the following seven children:

Seymour Glass (1917-1948): The eldest son of Bessie and Les. Seymour is featured in "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters," "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," "Hapworth 16, 1924," and "." He is the author of the letter that comprises the story of "Hapworth" and is the main character in "Bananafish". Seymour committs suicide in "A Perfect Day for Bananafish".

Buddy Glass (1919-???): The protagonist in "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters," and the narrator of "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" and "." It is revealed in the latter that he wrote at least two stories collected in Nine Stories: "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "Teddy". It is also suggested in "Seymour: An Introduction" that Buddy wrote The Catcher in the Rye. Buddy is often considered to be Salinger's alter ego. The character lives in upstate New York and teaches at a women's college. Buddy was very close to Seymour before the latter committed suicide in 1948, and he narrates most of the Glass stories in his attempt to connect with his dead brother.

Beatrice "Boo Boo" Glass (???-???): Married, mother of three children, Boo Boo appears centrally in "Down at the Dinghy," and is mentioned in "Hapworth 16, 1924."

Walt Glass (???-1946): American soldier killed in an accident in Occupied Japan shortly after World War II. He is described by his surviving girlfriend in "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut,".

Waker Glass (???-???): A Roman Catholic priest. Walt's twin.

Zachary Martin "Zooey" Glass (1930-???): Title character of "Zooey," in which he is approximately 25 years old. He is an actor, and (according to Buddy) the most attractive of all the children. He is characteristically misanthropic and is spiteful of the way Buddy and Seymour raised Franny and him.

Frances "Franny" Glass (1935-???): Title character of "Franny," she is a college student and actress. In both "Franny" and "Zooey", she is depicted reading the book, The Way of a Pilgrim, which contributes to an emotional breakdown.

Lionel Tannenbaum (???-???): the son of Boo Boo Glass. He appears in "Down at the Dinghy."

The children are all precocious, and in fact have all appeared on a fictional radio quiz show called It's a Wise Child. Wise Child has, according to Salinger's stories, sent all seven Glass children through college.

The family is of Jewish-Irish heritage. Their father Les, is Jewish, and their mother Bessie is Irish.

The Glass family lives in New York City; all the children spent most of their childhood in an apartment on the Upper East Side.

Influences on other works

Some of the characters in the Wes Anderson movie The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) were purportedly modelled after the Glass family. It is interesting to note that Boo Boo is married to a Mr. Tannenbaum, as described in the story "Down at the Dinghy."

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.