Salinger's “Franny”: Homoerotic Imagery

Among current American writers of fiction, no other writer has exerted so deep an influence as J. D. Salinger on college students of the past decade. His novel Catcher in the Rye is possibly the most widely read book among the college set. His writings have also received serious study by critics. His recent Franny and Zooey 9 is particularly rich in psychoanalytic import.

“Franny” is the story of a brief intellectual encounter between two young college students, Lane Cornell and his “date,” Franny Glass. Both had been looking forward to the exciting weekend of the big Yale-Princeton game. A studied nonchalance covers Lane's excited anticipation as he waits for the train. He receives a warm kiss from his “date” when she meets him. An hour later, they are having lunch in a French restaurant. Immediately, the beautiful weekend with its promise of love begins to disintegrate. By the time Lane has finished his meal, Franny is having a “nervous breakdown,” and the hope of a glorious time together has vanished. How did this happen?

The beginning of the debacle is apparent from the first word Lane utters after he has monopolized the conversation at the table for fifteen minutes. Someone—it turns out to be Flaubert—lacked “testicularity.” Lane had expected his paper on Flaubert to go over like a “goddam lead balloon, and when I got it back with this goddam ‘A’ on it in letters about six feet high, I swear I nearly keeled over.”

This need to impress his girl with his achievement and his masculinity is received in a manner that contrasts with the warmth of her welcome and the adolescent intoxication of the letter Lane had read for the n th time on the station platform. She refuses Lane's bid to be admired, and wants to know why Lane had expected the paper to go over like a lead balloon. This abrupt confrontation instantly arouses his anger, which he then represses—temporarily. He explains that his instructor is “a big Flaubert man.” Now Franny backs down temporarily.