The Perfect Family?

One theme throughout Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead that I frequently notice is how the narrator constantly reminds readers of the Cooper family’s perfection. Having a family of two hard-working parents, three children in respectable schools, and vacations in a family home, is apparently the vision of a perfect family. I found it interesting though, how despite the constant reiteration of this point, their family seems far from any societal standards of a perfect family. For one, both parents work extremely hard and are often away from home, leaving their fairly young children alone without proper meals or rules. Another interesting point was seeing the way Benji’s parents interact, specifically in the chapter “To Prevent Flare-ups” where his father gets mad at his mother for buying cheap paper plates that easily get soggy and struggle to hold food. 

This scene in particular gave me an odd feeling about his family, especially the way Benji distracted himself from their fight by reading a book, implying that they fight a lot. Furthermore, the way Benji’s father talked about women, saying he should choose a partner based on the way their mother looks, gave me an icky feeling. This whole chapter oddly reminded me of Bruce in “Fun Home”, and his obsession with attaining the image of ‘perfect family’ in exchange for actual happiness. It seems slightly like Benji’s father is also set on appearing perfect, from not having a wife people would call fat, to calling Reggie “shithead” for a year because of bad grades, he almost seems to view his family as people he can push around to make into his perfect vision. 

While I’m possibly being too harsh, and from what I’ve seen Bruce is still much more controlling than Benji’s father, there is still an interesting connection between the two characters. I’m also very curious how his possible perfectionism affects his children, and if it in any way is a similar way to Bruce. 

The Swan in "January Man"

The difference between Jason in the first “January Man” and the final “January Man” are absolutely shocking. More than that though, I noticed a significant difference in Jason during the final “January Man” than during all of the other chapters in the book. While I think looking at that final chapter and comparing it to the first chapter can help you really see all the development made to his character, you can also compare his character to one chapter before and still see a big difference. I think David Mitchell could be showing just how much divorce can age a child by having Jason’s inner monologue seem even more aged after just two weeks.

I think the passage on page 286 when Jason is observing a swan flying over the pond perfectly encapsulates the feeling of a parents separation aging you. Specifically, Jason describes the swan swooping towards its reflection in the water, but hovering over it before violently crashing down. I think the reflection could represent the truth Jason is oblivious to, and how he sees so many clues yet is still hit with his father’s news. “Ducks heckled the swan, but a swan only notices what it wishes to” basically, the truth is right in front of his face, but he is just a child and therefore doesn’t notice or comprehend the more adult issues going on in his life (Mitchell 286). The entire story is filled with such childish and immature concerns like school popularity, that the news of his parents divorce pushes Jason towards maturity too soon. Another way this is represented is when he sees Philip Phelps chasing Grant Burch in the forest and notes that he will never see them again. I think they could still represent the immaturity that Jason is leaving behind. In fact, I think leaving Black Swan Green is very representative of leaving his immaturity and innocence behind. 

In another sense, I think this passage could also relate to Jason’s father. “She bent and unbent her neck exactly how Dad does after a very long time” Jason says describing the swan (Mitchell 286). The swan could also be representative of Jason’s dad and how he is completely oblivious to Jason’s bullying because he is too entrenched in the affair business. Even when Jason goes on the work trip with him, his father is constantly being pulled away by work and forgetting about his own son. This can also show how many parents are unfortunately absent when going through marital problems because they forget the child will be just as affected, if not more, than they are. In this quote, the swan is stretching its neck like it’s finally getting a break from hard work. This reminds me of Jason’s father when he came back to get his stuff, and Jason described him as seeming sad but much more at peace. While all the hard work of constantly worrying and dealing with conflict has finished for his dad, all the trouble is beginning for Jason since he has been pushed too early into the realities of the world and will inevitably have trouble coming to terms with such a big change in his life. His dad is stretching his neck and recovering, oblivious to the fact that Jason will never be the same again. 

Helen and "Sunday Morning"

In chapter three of Fun Home by Allison Bechdel, there is a scene where Allison and her girlfriend Joan have a visit with Allison’s mother, Helen, after the funeral of her father, Bruce. In this particular scene, Helen is giving away books from Bruce’s library and tells Joan she can have anything from the collection. Joan chooses a book of poems, which Helen is excited to say contains her favorite poem “Sunday Morning” by Wallace Stevens. She then reads the first stanza out loud with what I saw as a great understanding, so much so that Joan tried to convince Helen that she should keep it. (here is a link to the poem if you would like to read it: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/13261/sunday-morning)

The poem “Sunday Morning” is about a woman who is staying home instead of going to church on a Sunday morning. She seems both guilty for skipping church but also extremely appreciative of the calm of a Sunday morning that she would have missed had she gone. Throughout the poem, she is also seeming to have some sort of realization of the role of religion in her life, and wondering why she should spend all her time focusing on religion and getting into heaven, instead of appreciating all the wonderful things in life that come before heaven. In a way, she is viewing going to church and focusing on the afterlife as giving herself away to it, instead of giving her life to things that are much more real to her, like nature and the earth.

At first glance, it was hard to identify the connection Allison sees between this poem and her mothers life. Allison tells readers that “Sunday Morning” is about crucifixion and that Helen possibly liked the poem because it correctly represented her relationship with religion, as in being Christian more in character rather than actual practice. Additionally, Allison hints that Helen enjoys it because she understands sacrifice, most likely meaning within her marriage. Allison even compares the contrast between the pleasant Sunday morning and morbid thoughts of the afterlife with the contrast between Bruce’s obsession with perfection in appearances and the secrets he was hiding.

I also think there are some other connections to be found. For one, I wonder if in some sense it’s symbolic that Helen is reading this poem out loud following Bruce’s funeral. The fact that the poem is about enjoying your life before death is sad to think about considering Bruce most likely spent all his life in a sort of secret anxiety. It’s also symbolic because I can imagine Helen having a sort of somber freedom now that Bruce is dead. Now she can find a fulfillment in life that was impossible to achieve with Bruce controlling every aspect of their appearances.

Esther and the Writing Course

If Esther had been accepted into the writing program after New York, would she ever have fallen into a depression and tried to commit suicide? Is that a defining point in the novel that leads to the events in the rest of the story?

When Esther gets back from New York, she is under the impression that she will be accepted into a writing course and will only have to stay at home for a little while before leaving for the rest of the summer. When she gets the letter from her college and realizes she must spend the rest of the summer with nothing to do, she falls into a sort of pit of despair. She is desperately looking for things to distract herself with, like writing a novel. However, there comes an issue when she faces writer's block and is unable to keep busy by writing this story. With nothing to write about, she is left to sit with her own thoughts, something she never really did before. She was constantly jumping from school to writing programs, etc. I think Esther was doing this because she needed to stay busy and away from her own thoughts, but also because she needed writing material. 

When Esther tries writing a novel, her idea is to create a sort of parallel story to her own life with small changes. I think this tells us a little bit about Esther’s inspirations for writing being that she tends to pull a lot from her own experiences. When Esther gets back from New York, she doesn’t have any experiences to find inspiration in because the events in New York held bad memories she didn’t want to think about. She finds herself in a position where she is unable to pull inspiration from her life, but she is also stuck in the suburbs and therefore has no other experiences she can write about. Because she was rejected from the writing program, she is stuck with nothing to do because she can’t write, and only has her thoughts for company. I think this is a situation she direly wants to avoid, especially when she has just had a traumatic experience in New York and likely doesn’t want her mind to stray there. In a way, she is trapped with the thoughts New York leaves her with, yet unable to write about them. She is also left in an identity crisis, because she centers her life around writing, and is now unable to do it.

Ultimately, Esther being rejected from the writing program left her mind undistracted, which led to her falling into a sort of rabbit hole into depression, leading to her suicide attempt. And I wonder, if Esther had been accepted into the writing program, would she have ever gone through these events? Would being able to distract herself from the events in New York help her eventually work through them in a healthy way, or would it only delay the events of the second part of The Bell Jar?

The Catcher in the Rye as a Movie?

When I first started The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, I was surprised to learn there was no audiobook version of the novel. In fact, there are no other media forms of The Catcher in the Rye, as Salinger was opposed to any adaptations being made. This includes The Catcher in the Rye being made into a movie. Seeing as this would have made Salinger a lot of money and popularized the story even further, one can assume it's incredibly significant to the nature of the story that there is no movie adaptation.

 I found it interesting how this preference of Salinger's is actually shown in the story, especially through the lens of Holden viewing his older brother. Within the first pages of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden mentions his older brother D.B., who was a writer but sold himself to Hollywood, basically meaning he is writing movies now. For some reason Holden seems to have a certain distaste for films, often referring to the producers and actors as phonies and calling movies lousy.

Holden only ever goes to movies when he is bored and has nothing to do. I noticed that he seems to hold a sort of superiority complex over people who enjoy watching movies. When Holden sits in a bar with the middle aged women from Seattle (Bernice, Marty, and Laverne), he repeatedly makes fun of them for looking for movie stars as if it makes them silly and stupid. The only time he mentions movies in a positive light is when he is talking about Phoebe and her love for the movie The 39 Steps and how she can always tell a good movie from a bad movie. I would guess his problem with other people is that they like any type of movie and don’t have specific taste.

From this, I would guess his problem with movies is that he is unable to identify deep themes of feelings as easily as in a book. He thinks of people who enjoy movies as unable to have more complicated thoughts. He sees most movies as superficial and silly and unable to translate ideas as effectively as literature would. I think this may also be J.D. Salinger’s reason for opposing a movie. Holden’s inner thoughts are very different from his outward actions as he is much more cynical and depressed-seeming in his head, but his actions show him desperate to connect with other people. I think in a movie it would be really difficult to properly show Holden’s inner voice in The Catcher in the Rye, and since it’s so integral to the story, a movie could never fully do the book justice.