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.
