Teddy (1953). Content and Description

The last of Salinger’s Nine Stories, “Teddy” was first published in the New Yorker’s January 31, 1953, issue. Named after its central character, 10-year-old Teddy McArdle, the story tracks a figure unlike any other in the collection, one who manages life’s absurdities with grace and sophistication. Typical of Salinger’s works, the action is minimal and can be summed up in a few sentences. While traveling by ship from England to the United States, Teddy has a conversation with his parents, during which Teddy’s father orders the boy to recover the family’s camera from Booper, Teddy’s six-year-old sister.

Teddy finds her on the upper deck, convinces her to return the camera, and sits on a lounge chair to compose his daily journal entry. Within a few minutes Bob Nicholson, a young adult Teddy has met on the ship, reclines on an adjacent chair and engages the boy in conversation. During their discussion, while divulging his commitment to Hinduism, Teddy emotionlessly describes the conditions of his own death, which he cryptically predicts will occur later that morning in a poolside accident. After 20 minutes Teddy leaves to meet Booper at the pool on a lower deck. After a moment’s contemplation Nicholson decides to find Teddy but arrives on the pool deck only to hear Booper’s shrill scream, presumably verifying Teddy’s prediction.

For readers of Salinger’s previous works, such as The Catcher in the Rye and the other short stories in Nine Stories, the style and themes in “Teddy” are familiar. The story is character-driven and dialogue-intensive. It explores the evisceration of spiritual meaning amid rampant materialism. However, “Teddy” marks a new direction for its author, sketching, for the first time, an outline of a fully mature human, one unfettered by material or emotional attachments. Teddy is sophisticated, a natural philosopher. The narrator calls Teddy “whole and pure,” noting that his face reflects “real beauty.” More important, Teddy recognizes beauty in objects others find boring or repulsive. “Life,” he writes in his diary, “is a gift horse.” Unlike his argumentative, irritable parents, Teddy is calm, affable, and honest.

Although “Teddy” was first published in a magazine and can be read without reference to Salinger’s other work, its full reach must be understood in the context of Nine Stories. As does the collection’s opening tale, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” “Teddy” ends with a death. The circumstances surrounding the deaths mirror and oppose one another. Seymour Glass and Teddy McArdle respond to identical stimuli—the modern world’s shallowness—in opposite ways. Where Seymour finds pain too intense to bear, Teddy finds beauty and serenity.

The most optimistic story in the collection, “Teddy” is also the most didactic. Teddy has no flaws, making it difficult to avoid reading him as a model. Teddy presumes to know the “real” way of envisioning reality, thereby circumscribing alternative viewpoints as false and misguided. The story tends to polarize readers. Where some find a refreshing solution for the myriad problems Salinger raises elsewhere, others discern a story with an unjustifiably preachy and judgmental tone.

The latter readership is likely to identify an unintended irony: Teddy is the nonjudgmental figure par excellence, yet at times, the narrative seems scornful of Teddy’s relatives, particularly his father and sister. Whichever interpretation readers choose, one aspect of the story is certain. “Teddy” marks a dramatic shift in Salinger’s approach to storytelling. Every collected work that follows is suffused with the same religiosity.

For Discussion or Writing:
1. The setting of “Teddy” strikes many readers as strange. Why might Salinger have chosen a multilayered steamship for the story’s locale? Do you recognize a link between Teddy’s explanation of Vedanta Hinduism and the setting? If possible, research Vedanta Hinduism before discussing these questions.

2. When The Catcher in the Rye thrust Salinger into the limelight, readers were fascinated with the author’s ability to render a realistic vision of American adolescence. Over a short period Salinger developed a reputation for constructing believable, realistic characters. With this in mind, do you find Teddy believable? If possible, read another story or two in the collection. Citing examples of Teddy’s speech and journal writing, compare Teddy with another Salinger character. How are they similar? Different?