Main Motifs in Black Swan Green
Throughout the novel, Jason Taylor has always seemed to push himself to be the person he’s not, however, his coming of age highlights the fact that you can only really be yourself. For the majority of the novel, the reader follows Jason’s narrative, learning about the established social hierarchy at school through names. In fact, a main motif of the book is the emphasis on distinction of kids through their names, which serve as their place in the social world of school. These are distinguished through students using either first names, middle names, last names or insults towards each other to serve the purpose of separating them on a social level. For example, Moran is called Moron for no reason other than the fact that the spelling is similar. Jason applies this name rule to himself in many ways as well: Hangman, which is indicative of his stammer, Maggot when he feels down and useless, Unborn Twin who is an imaginary perception/sidekick of Jason’s essentially and Eliot Bolivar, which is his poetry writing alter-ego. Jason essentially goes by Eliot when writing poetry to avoid further teasing or bullying in addition to the ones he faces at school for his stammer.
Another motif of the book that retraces back to the main point of growing into being oneself, masculinity is a prominent one. Jason is constantly seen pushing his limits and outside of his comfort zone trying to be more masculine like the “cool guys” at his school. Additionally, he has a crippling fear and takes immense caution to as not be perceived as “gay” or “a poof or ponce”, which would be the ultimate social suicide in definition at his school. Masculinity essentially connotes being “rough”, usually by some sort of physical means, by fighting for one’s belief and country, even if it means hiding your true emotions, fears, never showing any weaknesses or sensitivity to anything. Jason idolizes the cool guys at school and constantly puts them on a pedestal and tries to emulate their behavior. Soon after Jason throws up after smoking a cigarette he realizes he truly can’t mold himself by force into someone he’s not. By all definitions, Jason seems to not embody any of these traits, but ultimately by the end of the book neither do the “cool guys” if it’s 100% living up to these standards.
His ill experience with his first cigarette is a good example of the dynamic you describe here: he tries to "perform" this conventional form of "cool", but his body (his "inner self") conclusively rejects the posturing by having him vomit up his dinner while Hugo laughs at him. Not to be gross in a nice public blog like this, but an upset stomach is not something you can easily fake your way out of--if the stomach rejects what's in it, that stuff is coming back up no matter what you do to control it. It's as if Jason's own body is accusing him of "lying" when he tries to be cool and smoke.
ReplyDeleteI thought your discussion of the significance of names was really interesting. There's an unspoken hierarchy with names in Jason's world and thus, the name you are called carries a lot of social importance. As Jason has recognized, your name is essentially a label for your status. I found it nice when Jason started calling Dean by his actual name near the end of the book. You're right, I think he recognizes the futility of trying to be "cool." Great blog post!
ReplyDeleteIt’s really interesting to me how you explore the characters’ names in relation to their social standing. I never thought about the relation between those two. I realize now that there’s quite a lot of significance to the name people refer to you by the Jason’s town. Jason’s application of the importance of names to himself is also very intriguing. When he is still focused on becoming popular, he names himself in many ways, but by the end, when he doesn’t feel the need to become popular anymore, he’s overcome the need for Hangman and the others.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of the book Jason almost seems to be a stunted version of the person he is at the end, having been so concerned with social norms and keeping himself in line. His growth shows the importance of the authenticity theme
ReplyDeleteI agree that the character's names were significant. I also thought what Jason chose to be his publishing pseudonym was interesting. He chose "Eliot" after the writer T.S. Eliot, and "Bolivar" after Simon Bolivar, who was a military leader and war revolutionary. Both of these individuals were fearless in their own way; to Jason, T.S. Eliot represents the freedom to embrace his poetry without judgement, and Simon Bolivar was a revolutionary and had the courage to go against the crowd. By the end, I think Jason began to live up to his name when he stopped caring about the social hierarchy.
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