A Forced Coming of Age

The seniors are graduating, I'm about to become a senior, and summer is on its way. I have mixed feelings about all of these things. I'm excited for the seniors because I know they've worked so hard to get to this point, but I know I'll definitely miss some of them. I'm excited that I'll be a senior, but I'm also dreading the college application process. And last, but definitely not least, I'm excited for summer to begin. It's been a long year, and I definitely need the break.

At the same time, it's a little bit scary that senior year is already here. I don't think I'm ready for college. I'm not really sure about what I want to do with my life, and why should I? I'm only 16. I think that's too early to make decisions about your life. Applying to college makes me feel like I'm being forced to grow up too fast.

Coming of age is a process that is different for each person, but more and more I feel like we're all being forced to come of age at the same time, when we graduate high school. Some high school seniors might be "done" coming of age, and some might not be "ready." Coming of age is a slow process, but our society rushes it. It never really stops, as one can always get more mature, but it shouldn't be forced to happen within the space of one year.

The past week has really made me think about the future. I've gotten close to a few of the seniors this year, and I ca't believe they're going to college, and that my class will be next. The past 4 years at Uni have flown by. There are many times when I find myself wishing that high school was over, but at the same time, I don't know how ready I am to graduate.

Parents

There was one main thing about Sag Harbor that kept bothering me: why did Benji and Reggie's parents trust them to stay on their own all week? They're 14 and 15 years old -- just a little bit younger than I am -- and I doubt my parents would let me do that. The parents seem to put a lot of trust in their kids and I'm really not sure where it comes from.

Benji and Reggie seem to be, for the most part, good kids while they're in the city. There isn't any evidence that either of them get in any trouble. Still, it strikes me as unrealistic that parents would trust their kids to stay alone in a house for the work week, all summer long.

I expected the boys to get into much more trouble than they did. Besides drinking and shooting each other with BB guns, they honestly didn't do too many things. Nowadays, you hear a lot of stories about kids who throw huge, out of control parties when their parents go away for the weekend.

Benji mentioned that he wanted to go to a lot of parties in the city that year, so it surprised me that he didn't throw his own when he had the opportunity.

Besides the possibility of the kids throwing parties while the parents were gone, there are a whole host of other problems that could arise. The boys could get in a bad fight and, without parents to separate them, could get hurt. In fact, Benji does get hurt, when he's shot with the BB gun. The lack of parental supervision in Sag Harbor was really the only thing about the book that struck me as being wrong. Besides that, I really liked it, and I thought it was a great way to end the semester.

Bullying through the ages

In the first four books we read -- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Catcher in the Rye, The Bell Jar, and Housekeeping -- the main character's issues were mainly internal, problems with the world around them and where they fit in. In Black Swan Green, however, Jason has more trouble with the people around him than with his own thoughts.

Stephen Dedalus isn't happy with his society and where he lives, Holden Caulfield is just generally unhappy with society and the people (phonies) who are a part of it, Esther Greenwood is going through a serious mental breakdown partially prompted by her unhappiness with American culture, and Ruth Foster has issues with fitting into her culture, ultimately becoming a hobo.

Jason Taylor is a completely different story. He is dealing with lots of bullying from his peers, both in school and out, as well as watching his parents' marriage fall apart. We're always hearing in the news that bullying is on the rise, and I think that's why coming of age novels have changed their focus over the years. Instead of characters grappling with their own issues, they have to overcome challenges brought on by outside sources. Jason definitely experiences this, through the bullying of Ross Wilcox, Neal Brose, and their cronies.

Even Ruth Foster begins to feel it. She doesn't fit in with the kids in Fingerbone, and while she isn't outright bullied, it is evident that they make fun of her and don't like her very much. Esther Greenwood and Holden Caulfield don't really experience bullying. They both hate their culture and its' values, but both have friends and aren't ostracized by their peers. Stephen Dedalus experiences a little bit of bullying at the very beginning, when the older kids are making fun of him, but besides that he seems to be in control, popular yet disillusioned with his society and holding a general distaste for Ireland.

It will be interesting to see how Sag Harbor plays out, as Benji Cooper is growing up around the same time that Jason Taylor was. If Benji experiences bullying, his race could also play a role in it. All of the other characters we've read about have been part of the majority, but Benji is a minority and definitely could be the target of some 1980s American racism.

The problems that teenagers face have been changing as our society changes, and coming of age novels have to change to reflect this. This could be part of why many high schoolers today feel more of a connection to Jason Taylor than Holden Caulfield, because Jason goes through bullying and a parent's divorce, which are much more relevant to most kids today than the thoughts and struggles of a rich boy who hates his society.

Black Swan Green has a climate problem

The bullying that Jason goes through, especially in the chapter Maggot, is much more extreme than anything I've seen at any of the five different schools I've attended. Kids gang up on him, and the attacks are completely unprovoked.

Jason jumps on a one-way train to loserville when he leaves the Spooks to be a loyal friend and go back to help Dean. However, I don't think this justifies the kind of bullying he goes through. Jason shows them that he isn't really Spook material, but it seems as though they are punishing him for it. Wouldn't it be better to just let it go? They made a mistake choosing him, but just leaving him out of the group would have been enough. Jason didn't do anything to them, so the cruel bullying they put him through makes no sense to me.

Maggot opens up with a few boys ganging up on Jason for going to see a movie with his mother. What Jason does with his summer vacation has NOTHING to do with them, yet they think they get to punish him for doing something that they don't like. He wasn't conforming. Jason did something that wasn't cool by going to the movies with his mom. When he ditched the Spooks, he also wasn't conforming.

In the first few chapters of the book, Jason didn't experience nearly as much harassment. Some kids occasionally bullied him but, for the most part, left him alone. He was fairly low on the social hierarchy, but people didn't go out of their way to bully him. During this part of the book, he was trying desperately to fit in with his peers.

Jason's school has such a huge climate problem that it makes Uni seem like paradise. The biggest fight I've seen at Uni was over the video games in the lounge. That really pales in comparison to the bullying Jason endures.

Material love

Jason's parents are fighting over him as their marriage falls apart, trying to buy his affection through pocket money and gifts. They're in a competition over their unsuspecting son. This reminds me of my cousin, Amy, and her ex-husband, Joel (names have been changed).

Amy is a schoolteacher and Joel makes more money than her. Their three kids, Ellen, Jack, and Hailey, live with their mother most of the time. Since the divorce, Joel has been buying a constant stream of expensive gifts for the kids. The most recent present? Ipads. Amy doesn't have the money to buy her kids expensive presents, but she's their main caretaker. Joel tries to get his kids to like him better by buying them the expensive gifts their mother can't afford, even though they spend much more time with their mother.

The sad thing is that this method of buying a child's "love" through material things is very effective, especially for young, naive kids. I saw Jack, who is 9 years old, over spring break. One of his favorite conversational topics was his new iPad and how much fun he has playing with it.

His happiness was evident whenever he talked about his precious iPad. "My dad gave it to me!" he proudly proclaimed. It seemed that his father had successfully won his son's affection with a gift that Amy couldn't match. All Amy can give to her kids is her love and care. That seems like it's better than what Joel gives them, but the kids are young enough that they don't appreciate it. They just like the gifts from their father.

Helena and Michael Taylor are embroiled in a battle similar to the one-sided one that Joel is waging with Amy. Michael gives Jason extra spending money and then, on top of that, buys him a fossil. Helena tries to one-up Michael by giving Jason double the money that Michael gave him. Both scenes are relatively happy ones, and Jason has a bonding moment with each of his parents.

Neither parent won that battle, but maybe neither of them deserved to. They shouldn't have to fight over their son, especially through money and material gifts. What makes Jason happier is spending time having fun with his parents. not just spending their money.

My own coming of age

Taking this class has prompted me to think about my own coming of age a lot. The various novels we've read so far have given me a lot of new perspectives on what coming of age really is.

Independence.

Freedom.

Success.

These seem like the main points of coming of age, but they really only scratch the surface. There's so much more to coming of age than just moving out of your parent's house, going to college, getting a job.

It's a mindset.

Even if you're living independently, not living with your parents, you can still be fundamentally childlike. To come of age, you have to be able to think critically and make good decisions. You have to think about the long-term and realize the consequences your actions will have a month, a year, 5 years down the road. Thinking just about the present, the next few days, is more how a child thinks.

For children, there's always that big, scary, sometimes exciting "future" in the distance. Growing up, leaving your parents, getting a job, perhaps going to college or getting married. But the thing about that future, is it's in the future! Kids don't think about how their actions in the present will affect the way the future plays out. They don't plan their actions and make decisions based on what is good for the future. They just want to have fun!

A lot of college students are that way, too. Just because they're not living at home anymore doesn't mean they're adults. They may not have necessarily come of age yet. Coming of age can't just happen at a certain milestone age or life event. It has to happen when the mind matures, and that happens at a different time for each person.

Holden kills me

I thought that one of the most striking things about Salinger's writing style in Catcher was his use of several variations of the phrase "it killed me." According to a post by Evan, this phrase is used 34 times in the novel. That just kills me, it really does.

I interpreted his use of "it killed me" to mean that he liked something or thought it was funny. Since reading the novel, I've noticed that I use the phrase as well, in a similar way as Holden does. When someone says something funny I often tell them that they're killing me. However, I also use the phrase in a very different way, to express displeasure. For example, "it kills me to see someone in pain."

Holden casually throws around this phrase, as if death doesn't matter to him. As if he's invincible. The few scenes where he really contemplated death really struck a chord, because he was getting serious about something that at other times it seemed like he didn't care about. After the disaster with Sunny and Maurice, he contemplates suicide. I guess it really killed him.

Holden doesn't seem to care too much about his own health and well-being. He spends a few days gallivanting around New York on his own, drinking too much while barely eating or sleeping. This behavior really could kill him. His casualness about his health makes it especially jarring to read about the few occasions when he gets serious and starts thinking about life and, more importantly, death. It really made me wonder just how serious he was. He doesn't seem to care about his health, so could he actually commit suicide? Would he actually go through with it? OR was he just being a phony?

Esther

I'm really excited to read The Bell Jar. From the few chapters I've read, I already like the novel. I'm intrigued and I really want to read ahead. Part of my excitement comes from the fact that we're finally reading a novel with a female main character. I think a book with a female narrator will be easier for me to relate to than one with a male narrator, like Portrait or Catcher.

Coming of age novels are something that people my age should be able to understand and relate to pretty easily, since we're going through the process of coming of age while we read the novel. I think it's easier to relate to the problems and thoughts of a narrator of the same gender, because they might have more experiences in common with your own. I identified with Stephen Dedalus and Holden Caulfield to some degree, but I'm hoping to have a deeper connection to Esther Greenwood.

I really did enjoy reading Catcher in the Rye, but I am very excited to see what The Bell Jar has to offer. Esther Greenwood's dissatisfaction with her life is very relatable for me. I'm happy with my life, but I often get the feeling that I could be doing something more. I feel like there are better, more meaningful things that I could be doing, but I just don't know what they are.

For all of our similarities, there are many places where I don't identify with Esther, and even find myself questioning her sanity. She presents a very different image to the world than what we, who are privy to her thoughts, see. I'm interested to see if these two selves, the one that she shows people and the one who she really is, will ever collide.

Perceptions

Catcher gives us a good idea of what Holden thinks about other people and the world, but we don't get a very good picture of how other people perceive him. Even when reading about his interactions with other people, I often feel as though my opinions on those people are being swayed by Holden's constant barrage of insults and snide remarks about the other person.

His conversation with Carl Luce is one of the only times when we see what other people really think of him. Luce is sick of the conversation before he even sits down, and does everything he can to escape Holden's company. Holden picks up on this, and it seems as if he is trying to defend himself as he describes their interaction.

"How's your sex life?" I asked him. He hated you to ask him stuff like that.

"What're you majoring in?" I asked him. "Perverts?" I was only horsing around.

In both of these examples, Holden blows off Luce's annoyance, making it seem to us like Luce was overreacting and Holden was just making a joke. He tries to make it seem as though he's really cool and Luce is boring and has no sense of humor, but all I see is a boy trying too hard to seem older than he really is. Luce repeatedly mutters something long the lines of "same old Caulfield" while Holden asks him increasingly ruder and more private questions.

With Luce, we see a bit of what he thinks about Holden, but it's still clouded by Holden's comments. In most of his other interactions, we don't get as clear an idea of the other person's perception of Holden. During his date with Sally Hayes, he makes her seem irrational even as he is acting increasingly erratic. He calls himself crazy, a description which I agreed with during that scene, but we don't know what "old Sally" thinks. Holden makes it very clear that Sally annoys him, and we don't get a clear view of her, or her perceptions of Holden.

Holden's narration is intriguing and compelling, but I often find myself wishing I had a clearer view of other characters present in the novel and their perceptions of Holden.

A stylistic genius

Joyce is an exceptionally talented writer. Every word of the novel is perfectly written to show the maturing of Stephen's mind and to exhibit the way that Joyce thinks of Stephen's actions. The symbolism, metaphors, and connections between different scenes in the novel are also incredible.

Upon reading the first scene, I was bewildered by the odd language Joyce used. Now that I've nearly finished the novel and seen the way Joyce matches the language in the book to Stephen's maturity, I'm much more impressed by Joyce than I was three weeks ago.

Joyce's writing has morphed from the choppy thoughts of a young boy to beautiful, powerful, and sometimes musical musings of an intelligent young man. Though sometimes I find it difficult to get through the pages, Joyce's style of writing is so unique that I still enjoy the reading.

When we discuss the novel in class, I'm always amazed at how much hidden meaning I miss. I usually only find about half of the metaphors connections between scenes on my own. I love that moment when something suddenly makes even more sense after someone points out another meaning of the words. This novel has completely changed my thoughts on the coming of age novel.

To like or not to like?

When Stephen Dedalus was a young, innocent boy, I liked his character. He was naive and socially awkward, but I thought it was kind of cute. Now that we're nearing the end of the novel, he doesn't seem so cute. He's exceedingly arrogant and yet I feel a connection to him.

Some aspects of his personality could be explained through hardships when he was younger, though his childhood was by no means difficult. His family lost a lot of wealth and social standing, but he still had a roof to sleep under and food to eat. What he hasn't had is friends -- true friends -- who he can trust with anything. He's lonely. An outsider.

I think the idea of being an outsider is something a lot of people can relate to. There's always some situation where even the most confident, friendly, and popular person will feel as though they don't belong. Unfamiliar situations, especially those where the other people are all well acquainted with each other, can really make a person feel uncomfortable.

When Stephen felt left out of the group, even when it was by choice, I understood what he was feeling. I generally don't perceive myself to be an outsider, but I have been in several situations where I've felt like the odd one out.

There were definitely several moments throughout the book where I've felt a connection to Stephen Dedalus. There were also countless times where I was completely disgusted by him. He's selfish, arrogant, and lacks self control.

My opinions on Stephen are constantly fluctuating, changing multiple times a chapter. I can't decide whether or not I like him. He's an intriguing character; as despicable as he is relatable. 

To come of age

I think coming of age means becoming mature and able to interact as an adult in society. It's a gradual process; you don't become an adult overnight. One day, you may come to the realization that you are now an adult, but it is the product of years of development and may come earlier for some than for others.

In American culture, we tend to measure coming of age by a person's literal age. 16, 18, 21, they're all considered milestone ages in a young person's life. At 16 you can drive. I'm 16 and I don't have my license. I also don't think I've come of age, though I don't think that getting my driver's license will suddenly turn me into an adult. At age 18, you become a legal adult, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're mature. Even by 21, a person may still rely on their parents for support and guidance.

Education is another way we often attempt to measure maturity. Graduating from high school can mean moving on in life, as can graduating from college. Though these are pivotal moments in one's life, I believe that they can happen without a person having come of age.

I don't think maturity is dependent on age. A person's life experiences shape the mind and affect the way that person thinks. A person who has gone through many trials and hardships will mature much faster than someone of the same age who has led a fairly easy life, because hardship forces people to face the "real world." 

Gaining experience in various worldly matters is how a person comes of age, and you never stop gaining experience, so I think coming of age is a never-ending process.