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.