"Teddy" is a short story by J. D. Salinger, completed on November 22, 1952, and originally published in the January 31, 1953, issue of The New Yorker. Under the influence of The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Salinger created an engaging child character, Teddy McArdle, to introduce to his readership some of the basic concepts of Zen enlightenment and Vedanta reincarnation – a task that Salinger recognized would require overcoming some 1950s American cultural chauvinism. Salinger wrote "Teddy" while he was arranging publication for a number of his short stories and crafted the story to balance and contrast the collections' intended opening work "A Perfect Day for Bananafish". In Salinger's novella, "Seymour: An Introduction", a meditation written by a member of the fictional Glass family, Buddy Glass about his brother, Seymour, Buddy claims authorship to "Teddy" as well as other pieces in Nine Stories. Summary The story comprises several vignettes which take place aboard a luxury liner. The events occur roughly between 10:00 and 10:30 am on October 28, 1952. Teddy is Theodore "Teddy" McArdle, a 10-year-old mystic-savant returning home to America with his entertainer-socialite parents and his younger sister. As part of their tour of Great Britain, Teddy has been interviewed as an academic curiosity by professors of religious and philosophical studies - the "Leidekker examining group" - from various European universities in order to test his claims of advanced spiritual enlightenment. The first scene opens in the McArdles' stateroom. Teddy is standing on his father’s expensive suitcase, peering out of the porthole. Mr. McArdle, apparently hung-over, is attempting to verbally assert control over his son; Mrs. McArdle indulges the boy as a provocative counterpoint to her husband’s bullying: neither adult has any real effect on the child's behavior. Responding to his parents' outbursts impassively, he contemplates the nature of existence and physical permanence while observing fragments of orange peel that have been discarded overboard. The concepts that the preternatural child ponders are evidently derived from Zen and Vedantic religious philosophy, and suggest that Teddy possesses advanced enlightenment or God-consciousness. When Teddy conveys his spiritual insights to his father and mother, they interpret them merely as the products of his precociousness, eliciting annoyance or indifference from the adults. Teddy is ordered to retrieve his six-year-old sister, Booper, who has absconded to the sport deck with her father’s expensive camera, which Teddy - indifferent to its material value - has bestowed