Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Salinger, J. D. - John Wenke （essay date 1987）

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John Wenke （essay date 1987）

SOURCE: “Sergeant X, Esmé, and the Meaning of Words,” in J. D. Salinger, edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House Publishers, 1987, pp. 111-18.

[In the following essay, Wenke examines the significance of failed communication and self-expression in “For Esmé—with Love and Squalor.”]

She went on to say that she wanted all her children to absorb the meaning of the words they sang, not just mouth them, like silly-billy parrots.

—“For Esmé—with Love and Squalor”

During a time when many writers are reconsidered, reconstructed, rediscovered, or revisited, the last ten years have been remarkable for the apparent decline of critical interest in J. D. Salinger. Over the last two decades, Salinger has had so little to say that his commentators, once a spirited and argumentative group, seem to have followed the lead of the master and...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Anne Marple （review date 18 September 1961）
   2. J. D. O'Hara （essay date Winter 1963-1964）
   3. Bernice and Sanford Goldstein （essay date Autumn 1966）
   4. Kerry McSweeney （essay date Spring 1978）
   5. Edwin Haviland Miller （essay date Winter 1982）
   6. Sanford Pinsker （essay date Winter 1986）
   7. Max F. Schulz （essay date 1987）
   8. Helen Weinberg （essay date 1987）
   9. John Wenke （essay date 1987）
   10. Terry Teachout （essay date September 1987）
   11. Joyce Rowe （essay date 1991）
   12. Peter Shaw （essay date 1991）
   13. Pamela Steinle （essay date 1991）
   14. Susan K. Mitchell （essay date December 1992）
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. J. D. Salinger