Zooey also brought up an incident of when Franny was ten, and went around screaming about how she hated Jesus because A) he went to synagogues and threw around idols and tables, and B) in one verse in the Bible, Jesus says ‘Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father feadeth them. Are ye not much better than they?’ At the age of ten, Franny could not stand to love anyone who claimed that a person, any person, even her Professor Tupper, whom she despised, is more valuable to God than a chicken. This was discrimination that Franny could not comprehend or work with, and that day had turned to Buddha for any further spiritual insight. Zooey claims that there is no great difference between the age of 10 or 20, and that Franny will never be able to love and follow someone who does not hold animals in an equal light as humans for instance, because that her nature, something she will never be able to change.

He claims that she does not see Jesus as who he is, but rather as who she wants him to be, a version ninety times more lovable than his actual self. He also thinks that she’s viewing Jesus as a mix of all the people she wants to know and get close to, such as her older brother Seymour, who committed suicide when she was younger. In this story, Franny doesn’t really need to conquer this challenge, or argument. In this story, in order to complete her journey, she needs understand and believe what Zooey is telling her, because it is the truth. If she’s going to bother putting forth so much energy to breakdown and put all her beliefs and emotions on the line to follow, and dedicate her whole life to one man, she needs to set aside all she wants of the prayer and of Jesus in order to see what they will actually offer her. And Franny does accept what Zooey is telling her merely by not arguing with him.