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Sag Harbor: realities behind insult formulas and alpha dog olympics

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I found Benji in Sag Harbor struggling through the same pressure of rules following and fear of embarrassment from friends as Jason Taylor from Black Swan Green. Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead follows 15-year-old Benji and details his journey navigating the African American community in the summer. Similar to how Jason follows unspoken social codes on clothing and names they’re supposed to call each kid (details on Jason check my other blog :)), Benji and his friends are also bound by rules for creating the correct insults. In the second chapter, Benji graphs out a table to correctly construct insults: First come the modifiers, followed by the -in’ verbs, and ending with the object (Whitehead 52). This formulaic approach suggests how performative these teenagers’ daily lives are. They are constantly insecure of making lame jokes or weak insults in front of each other. The formula shows their daily expressions, jokes, or insults aren’t natural and relaxed. They all learn the patterns of...
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Black Swan Green: Let’s be Uncool!

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Black Swan Green follows Jason’s personal growth over his thirteenth year. Jason starts his first year of teenage life in immense fear of other people discovering his “real” self. A big source of Jason’s anxiety comes from the kids in his neighborhood. Jason believes that kids in his village fall into a rigid, invisible hierarchy of popularity. Jason firmly believes that one’s rank in this power hierarchy will determine everything from friendships to respect to “survival” (Mitchell 5). Jason sees himself towards the lower side, where he lacks the coolness to be accepted by the tough kids, but also refuses to reside with the outsider kids. This in-between position renders him constantly self-conscious of his rank. For much of his year, Jason tries to construct a tough facade to impress and gain acceptance from the tough circle.  Although Jason tries hard to render himself as tough as the other kids, he never gets their acceptance. In fact, Jason’s desire to conform to them forces hi...
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Fun Home: Do we trust Alison?

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Fun Home is Alison’s attempted reconstruction of her father’s enigmatic accidental death. Throughout the novel, Alison jumps back and forth between understanding it as a random death and a kind of deliberate, maybe even artistic, suicide. Alison narrates in a very analytical tone. She constantly draws on evidence, citing books, pictures, and handwritten letters. Yet, the novel is still characterized by uncertainty. Alison often retells the same event again and again, each time revealing more details, perspectives, and interpretations. An example is her mother's reaction to Alison’s coming-out. At first, Alison recalls her mother telling her “your father has had affairs with other men (Bechdel 58).” Later, as if she had just remembered, she adds on that the victim is Roy, their babysitter (211). This sort of revision to memory makes the narrative more like a puzzle being actively pieced together than a fixed account. This novel isn’t Alison’s theory on Bruce’s death, but her worki...
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Is Mrs. Greenwood a Good Mother?

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The Bell Jar follows the mental breakdown of Esther Greenwood as she struggles through the social expectations and pressures of early 1950s America. As Esther’s mental state descends into depression, she sends many cries for help to her mother, Mrs. Greenwood. Yet, many of Mrs. Greenwood's responses only seem to exacerbate Esther’s condition. But is Mrs. Greenwood really a bad, indifferent mother? Undeniably, many of Mrs. Greenwood’s comments on Esther’s condition are inappropriate. When Esther tells her that she has not slept consecutively for seven nights, Mrs. Greenwood completely denies her insomnia by stating that she “must have slept, it was impossible not to sleep in all that time (Plath 127).” Instead of taking Ester’s confession as a serious warning sign, Mrs. Greenwood dismisses it as an exaggeration. Her response both invalidates Esther’s struggles and pushes her into deeper isolation. A similar instance happens after Esther receives her first electroshock treatment. Wh...
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Jane vs. Phoebe?

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Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, Holden repeatedly expresses his idealization of purity and innocence of childhood and hatred for the phoniness of adulthood. Holden defines purity as untainted by adulthood’s corruption and phoniness. In Holden’s four days wandering in the streets of New York City, he dismisses almost everyone he meets as phony for their hypocrisy, vanity, conceit, or whatever it may be. Among the few free from his criticisms are Jane Gallagher and his sister, Phoebe Caulfield. While they are both emotional support for Holden, he classifies them into very different roles in his psychological world. Jane symbolizes Holden’s attachment to the lost, idealized childhood, while Phoebe emerges as a living guiding force grounding him in the mental breakdown. Jane is Holden’s close childhood friend and neighbor. Throughout the book, Jane exists entirely in Holden’s memory, frozen and unattainable in the ideal past. Holden idealizes Jane for her innocence and childishness. In...
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Every post from now on will be for Coming-of-Age :DD

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Libra: Imperfect Art of Fate

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Libra by Don DeLillo is a speculative reconstruction of the JFK assassination in support of the conspiracy theory that Lee Harvey Oswald did not commit the crime alone. The novel suggests that 3 former CIA agents plotted the crime and looped in Oswald as the main shooter to tie the crime to Cuba. However, the plan had its own fate and did not exactly follow their envision. Oswald, on the other hand, had his desire to work as a lone gunman also trampled. Through both failed plans, DeLillo suggests a theme of how individuals will often fall short in determining fate, and subsequently the course of history.  Growing up as a solitary figure, Oswald develops a strong desire to work independently. Acting alone allows him to feel significant, to matter . Even Mackey, the conspirator portrayed earlier as skeptical of everyone, firmly believed that “Oswald wanted to be the lone gunman” (DeLillo 386). However, Oswald’s obsession did not prevent him from being framed by a larger system, name...
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