Teaching For Esmé with Love and Squalor

Instructions for You

Objective: Poor Sergeant X. Sure he gets out alive, but he definitely doesn't seem to be A-okay after the war, which might explain his name: if A's okay then X is way off down the other end of the spectrum, where metaphorical storm clouds are brewing 24-7.

As they said in the 1960s, war is not healthy for children and other living things. Certainly for the narrator of "Esmé" (as for Salinger himself), the war was psychologically damaging. In this activity, students do a close reading of the second section of the story and imagine that they're the narrator's friend, Clay, observing the narrator's erratic behavior. They will write a letter to Clay's psychology-student girlfriend, Loretta, telling her about the narrator's (now called Sergeant X) current mind-set in the immediate postwar period. Essentially, this letter will be a brief psychological observation of Sergeant X. They will follow their concerned letter by working in psychological teams to decide if the modern symptoms of PTSD apply to the World War II era narrator.

Materials Needed: Access to Nebraska Department of Veterans' Affairs' article on posttraumatic stress disorder

Step 1: Begin by reading to your students this biographical tidbit about author J.D. Salinger from Shmoop's Salinger guide:

Salinger was drafted into World War II in 1942. He served as an interrogator, questioning prisoners of war in both Italian and French. He had a successful and distinguished military career, landing at Utah Beach on D-Day and fighting in the Battle of the Bulge near the end of the war. He also was among the first soldiers to enter the newly-liberated concentration camp at Dachau, Germany, witnessing firsthand the horrors of the Holocaust. Like many soldiers, Salinger was deeply affected by his experiences in combat and was briefly hospitalized after the war for post-traumatic stress. The concentration camps particularly upset him. In her memoir, his daughter Margaret recalled her father telling her, "You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely. No matter how long you live." In 1945, Salinger married a German woman named Sylvia, a former Nazi Party member whom he had had arrested during the war. The unlikely marriage lasted for less than two years and they divorced in 1947.

Salinger kept up his writing while in Europe, carting his typewriter around in his Jeep and pounding out stories whenever he had a chance. He wrote to his mentor Burnett, "Am still writing whenever I can find the time and an unoccupied foxhole." The Saturday Evening Post and Collier's magazine accepted stories he wrote during that time. He also looked up Ernest Hemingway, who was a war correspondent for Collier's at the time. The two men met and clicked immediately. Hemingway was impressed with the younger man's writing ability, and later remarked, "Jesus, he has a helluva talent."

Hold an all-class discussion about the autobiographical elements Salinger has woven into "For Esmé with Love and Squalor." What similarities jump out at your students? What has Salinger used from his own experiences but changed for the story? How does knowing this information about Salinger's WW II experience add to their appreciation of this work?

Step 2: Divide the students into small groups and have them reread the second section of the story, jotting down evidence they find that reveals Sergeant X's psychological frame of mind. They should focus on four topics concerning Sergeant X's mind-set after the war: 

• how war affected him firsthand
• his current mood
• how X deals with problems/issues 
• his ability to connect with others.

Give them 20 minutes to mine the story for evidence.

The letter should be 200 – 250 words in length, and contain references to at least three issues/events they've found in the text or in Shmoop's biographical information about Salinger. Students should begin the letter in class and can finish it for homework if time is an issue.

Step 4: Loretta's psychology professor suggests that X might be suffering from PTSD. For this final part of the activity, students come together again in their teams, imagining themselves as students from Loretta's psychology class, assigned with psychologically evaluating X. They've got to determine if X has PTSD, so the team should begin by reading and discussing the article on the disorder by the Nebraska Department of Veterans' Affairs "What Is PTSD?"

Step 5: Now that they've read about PTSD, the teams are ready to evaluate X and determine if he might be suffering from this syndrome. This part of the activity could result in either oral presentations of the group's findings or a written report authored by the entire team. (If the presentation is oral, each team should concur or dissent from the first presentation/diagnosis and add additional evidence for their findings.)

If you choose to have the teams write up their opinions, here are some guidelines for each team's written psychological evaluation of X:

• It should be around 250 – 300 words long.
• All ideas should be supported by specific reference to the second section of the text.
• It should include at least three key quotes while talking about X.

Here's an example to get the ball rolling:

The article refers to people with PTSD having difficulty concentrating after a traumatic event. This is seen in the "Arousal Symptoms" section, which mentions how "People with PTSD may feel constantly alert after the traumatic event. This is known as increased emotional arousal, and it can cause difficulty sleeping, outbursts of anger or irritability, and difficulty concentrating." X displays such when he cannot write to his friend in New York. This could be seen as a result of his time at war which has impacted his ability to concentrate, seen earlier as he cannot distinguish or rationalize episodes from the conflict, such as his suggestion that the cat killed was a German spy.

Instructions for Your Students

Student Intro: Poor Sergeant X. Sure he gets out alive, but he definitely doesn't seem to be A-okay after war, which might explain his name: if A is okay then X is way off down at the other end of the spectrum, where there are metaphorical storm clouds brewing 24-7.

In this activity, first you'll pretend to be Sergeant X's friend Clay, in a worried place about your friend's disturbed state of mind. You'll think of all of the troubling things that X is up to and then write a letter to your psychology-student girlfriend, Loretta, pouring out your concerns about your peculiar friend, X. Then, you'll imagine you're part of a team in Loretta's psychology class, tasked with evaluating Sergeant X on a more professional level and seeing what's up with him. Hopefully you'll suggest he moves further up the alphabet.

Step 1: Your teacher's going to read you some very interesting details about author J.D. Salinger's own experiences in WWII. Listen carefully for the ways in which Salinger borrows from his own biography in describing Sergeant X's postwar state of mind. Enjoy.

Step 2: You're going to work in a small group, rereading the second section of the story, jotting down evidence you find that reveals Sergeant X's psychological frame of mind. You should focus on four topics concerning Sergeant X's mind-set after the war:

• how war affected him firsthand
• his current mood
• how X deals with problems/issues
• his ability to connect with others

Read through carefully with your team, taking bullet point notes about things that he says and does that provide you with clues as to what's up, psychologically, with the sergeant.

You'll have about 30 minutes for this task.

Step 3: Use your notes to write a letter to Loretta, Clay's girlfriend. Imagine you're Clay and you're very worried about your friend, Sergeant X. Your girlfriend, Loretta, is a psychology student, and you know she'll be interested to hear about X and might even have some helpful advice for you. This letter should be in Clay's voice and should express his (your) concerns about what's going on with Sergeant X.

The letter should be 200 – 250 words in length and contain references to at least three issues/events you've found in the text. You might have time to begin the letter in class, but you'll probably have to finish it for homework.

Step 4: Loretta's psychology professor suggests that X might be suffering from PTSD, posttraumatic stress disorder. For this final part of the activity, you'll come together again with your team, pretending now to be students from Loretta's psychology class, assigned with psychologically evaluating X. You've got to determine if X has PTSD, so the team should begin by reading and discussing this article "What Is PTSD?"

Step 5: Now that you've read about PTSD, your team is ready to evaluate X and determine if he might be suffering from this syndrome. Your teacher will either ask you to present your findings/diagnosis orally or to write a written report. If your team is presenting orally, state which position about X and PTSD you've taken and mention the behaviors he showed that make you think this way. If another group has already mentioned your example, you don't have to repeat it.

If your teacher has decided that your team should write up your opinion about X and PTSD, here are some guidelines for your written psychological evaluation of X:

• It should be around 250 – 300 words long.
• All ideas should be supported by specific reference to the second section of the text.
• It should include at least three key quotes while talking about X.

Here's an example to get the ball rolling:

• The article refers to people with PTSD having difficulty concentrating after a traumatic event. This is seen in the "Arousal Symptoms" section, which mentions how "People with PTSD may feel constantly alert after the traumatic event. This is known as increased emotional arousal, and it can cause difficulty sleeping, outbursts of anger or irritability, and difficulty concentrating." X displays such when he cannot write to his friend in New York. This could be seen as a result of his time at war, which has impacted his ability to concentrate, seen earlier as he cannot distinguish or rationalize episodes from the conflict, such as his suggestion that the cat killed was a German spy.