| "This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by J. D. Salinger | |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publication | |
| Published in | Esquire |
| Publication date | October 1945 |
"This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise" is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the October 1945 issue of Esquire. [1] [2] The story was published in the 1958 anthology The Armchair Esquire, edited by Arnold Gingrich and L. Rust Hills.
"This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise" is the seventh of Salinger's nine works dealing with members of the Caulfield family. [3]
The story describes Vincent Caulfield's experience at a Georgia boot camp before embarking for the war. [4] He is upset because his brother Holden (as described in "Last Day of the Last Furlough") is missing in action, and is unable to accept the possibility Holden may be dead. [5] [6]
Though none of Salinger's correspondence reveals the precise evolution of the story, "This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise" was completed in late 1944 when Salinger was serving with US Army units fighting the Schnee Eifel and Hürtgen Forest. Biographer Kenneth Slawenski speculates on how this reality may have affected Salinger's handling of the story:
Grappling to deal with death, Salinger casts himself as Vincent Caulfield, who, mirroring his creator, remained torn between repressing his feelings and admitting the reality in which he was embroiled. [7]
In "This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise," Salinger uses a present-tense internal monologue to examine the anguished speculation of an older brother, Vincent, obsessing over his beloved younger brother Holden, who is reported missing-in-action while serving in combat during World War II. [8] Salinger develops a narrative "completely within Vincent's tortured mind." [9] His distracted worry borders on panic and paranoia:
Missing, missing, missing. Lies! I'm being lied to. He's never been missing before. He's one of the least missing boys in the world. He's here in this truck; he's home in New York; he's at the Pentey Preparatory School ('You sent us the Boy, We'll mold the Man - all modern fireproof buildings…'); yes, he's at Pentey, he never left school…Missing! Is that missing? Why lie about something as important as that? [10]
In one of "one of the more remarkable passages in Salinger's work," Vincent indulges in an idealized recollection of Holden and his siblings, Red and Phoebe, which resembles the protagonists in The Catcher in the Rye (1951):
Red said to me, It won't hurt you to see the [World's] Fair either. It's very pretty. So I grabbed Phoebe, and she had some kid with her named Minerva (which killed me), and I put them both in the car and then I looked around for Holden. I couldn't find him; so Phoebe and Minerva and I left without him…at the Fair we went to the Bell Telephone Exhibit, and I told Phoebe that This Phone was connected with the author of the Elsie Fairfield books. So Phoebe, shaking like Phoebe, picked up the phone, picked up the phone and trembles into it, Hello, this is Phoebe Caulfield, as a child at the World's Fair. I read your books and think they are excellent in spots. My mother and father are playing in Death Takes a Holiday in Great Neck. We go swimming a lot, but the ocean is better in Cape Code. Good bye!...And then we came out of the building and there was Holden, with Hart and Kirky Morris. He had my terry-cloth shirt on. No coat. He came over and asked Phoebe for her autograph and she socked him in the stomach, happy to see him, happy to see her brother. Then he said to me, Let's get out of this educational junk. Let's go on one of the rides or something. I can't stand this stuff...And now they're trying to tell me he's missing. Missing. Who's missing? Not him. He's at the World's Fair. [11]
"This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise" is evidence of Salinger's early interest in themes concerning the reconstruction of an idealized past, as in the Glass family stories. [12]
I am inside the truck, too, sitting on the protection strap, trying to keep out of the crazy Georgia rain, waiting for the lieutenant from Special Services, waiting to get tough.
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"Hapworth 16, 1924" is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger that appeared in the June 19, 1965, issue of The New Yorker.
Holden Caulfield is a fictional character in the works of author J. D. Salinger. He is most famous for his appearance as the lead character and narrator of the 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye. Since the book's publication, Holden has become an icon for teenage rebellion and angst, and is considered among the most important characters of 20th-century American literature. The name Holden Caulfield was initially used in an unpublished short story written in 1941 and first appeared in print in 1945.
“Slight Rebellion off Madison” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the 21 December, 1946 issue of The New Yorker.
"I'm Crazy" is a short story written by J. D. Salinger for the December 22, 1945 issue of Collier's magazine. Despite the story's underlying melancholy, the magazine described it as "the heart-warming story of a kid whose only fault lay in understanding people so well that most of them were baffled by him and only a very few would believe in him".
“A Boy in France” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the 31 March, 1945 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
“Go See Eddie” is a work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger published in the University of Kansas City Review in December 1940. The story is included in the 2014 Salinger collection Three Early Stories.
"The Hang of It" is a short story by J. D. Salinger, first published in the July 12, 1941 issue of Collier's magazine.
“The Heart of a Broken Story” is a work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger published in the September 1941 issue of Esquire.
“The Long Debut of Lois Taggett” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the September-October 1942 issue of Story.
“Personal Notes of an Infantryman” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the 12 September, 1942 issue of Collier's.
“The Varioni Brothers” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the 17 July, 1943 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
“Both Parties Concerned” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the 26 February, 1944 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
“Soft-Boiled Sergeant” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the 26 February, 1944 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
“Once a Week Won’t Kill You” is a work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger published in the November–December 1944 issue of Story. The story is included in the 2014 Salinger collection Three Early Stories.
“Blue Melody” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the September 1948 issue of Cosmopolitan. The story was inspired by the life of Bessie Smith and was originally titled "Needle on a Scratchy Phonograph Record". Cosmopolitan changed the title to "Blue Melody" without Salinger's consent, a "slick" magazine tactic that was one of the reasons the author decided, in the late forties, that "he wanted to publish only in The New Yorker."
“Elaine” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the March-April, 1945 issue of Story.
“The Inverted Forest” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the December 1947 issue of Cosmopolitan. The work was republished in Cosmopolitan's "Diamond Jubilee" issue in March 1961. The story marked the start of Salinger's focus on the poet as a distinguished creative genius, and on the impossibilities he finds when trying to adapt to society.
“A Girl I Knew” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the February 1948 issue of Good Housekeeping.
“The Young Folks” is a work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger published in the March–April issue of Story magazine. The story is included in the 2014 Salinger collection Three Early Stories.
Neither Salinger in his lifetime nor his estate after his death has ever authorized the publication of a volume of Salinger's registered early short fiction which appeared in magazines between 1940 and 1965. Reprints of his early stories have appeared under the auspices of Esquire and The New Yorker, to which Salinger stories had originally been sold.
