Earlier we discussed how Uncle Nelson in Sag Harbor has a similar personality to Sylvie in Houskeeping. Both live differently from most others--including the other adults in their respective families--and have relatively laid-back personalities. I think it is fair to say that both Uncle Nelson and Sylvie behave like children (or at least much younger than their actual ages) at times, with Sylvie needing her nieces to remind her to wear boots in the snow and Uncle Nelson sitting at the kids' dinner table and driving around with his nephews, buying them beer.
I would also argue that Uncle Nelson and Sylvie are very much alike in the perspective on life they introduce to the adolescent main characters of Sag Harbor and Housekeeping. Before Sylvie came into their lives, Ruth and Lucille always had to obey their grandmother and great-aunts' rules about how to act, and couldn't voice their feelings very much. Similarly, Benji has to follow his father's strict orders in Sag Harbor or else face tough physical and emotional consequences.
When Sylvie becomes Ruth and Lucille's guardian, her free-spirited attitude and lack of experience with raising children allows her nieces to do and say what they want and therefore express or discern their own ideas. Uncle Nelson's interactions with Benji are similar in that Uncle Nelson seems to put Benji at ease. Benji enjoys when Uncle Nelson is around and I think finds it comforting that Uncle Nelson is an adult but hasn't lost all the fun that comes with being a kid (in contrast to Benji's dad, who is much more uptight).
Uncle Nelson and Sylvie represent ways of life that clearly oppose the ways in which Benji and Ruth were raised before, drawing the adolescents to the less rigid lifestyles. I think it is important that in each of these novels, going against the lifestyle they have long been raised with is seen as a positive thing for the adolescent main characters. For Ruth, that means associating with Sylvie's more transient point-of-view as opposed to the traditional routine of her her grandmother, and for Benji, that means taking advantage of his fun times with Uncle Nelson because he doesn't like his father's strict, harsh mentality.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Generation Separation
In class yesterday, we began talking about the relationship between Benji's generation and his parents' generation in Sag Harbor. After thinking about what Colson Whitehead mentions about Benji's parents' lives and how Benji and his friends feel about issues of race, I have a few ideas about some potential connections between the parents' experiences during the Civil Rights Movement and the kids' relatively privileged way of living:
One of the differences between Benji's generation and his parents' that I noticed early on is their respective relationships to the Civil Rights Movement. Benji and his brother Reggie were both born after the peak of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, so they never experienced the more extreme forms of segregation that his parents have endured. Another sign of the disconnect Benji has from the Civil Rights Movement is articulated as early as the first chapter of the novel, when Benji discusses not knowing much about many famous black people. On page 13 of my book (the hardcover version), Whitehead writes,
"One of my uncles would be over and mention Marcus Garvey and I'd ask, 'Who's that?,' as the eyes of all the adults in the room slitted for a sad round of tsk-tsking. 'Who's Toussaint L'Ouverture?' I'd stupidly inquire, and my father would shoot back, 'You don't know who Toussaint L'Ouverture is? What do they teach you at that fancy school I bust my ass to send you to?' Not 'Iconic Figures of Black Nationalism,' that's for sure."
There is an awkward difference between Benji's obliviousness to pivotal figures in Black history and his parents' noticing and possibly even being a part of the Civil Rights Movement and its immediate effects. This passage from the first chapter of Sag Harbor illustrates that it can be uncomfortable for Benji to ask about aspects of the Civil Rights Movement simply because it is so engrained in his parents' lives that they can't believe he isn't more attuned to or knowledgeable of it.
On a related note, I think readers of Sag Harbor could see Benji and his friends' toughness, awareness, or--what some people in class have suggested--oversensitivity when it comes to the role of race in their lives as a reflection of their parents' earlier struggles with how they were treated for being black. The kids have been privileged as far as their socioeconomic status their entire lives, while their parents had to endure growing up in a different, racially-segregated time. This is not to say that Benji and his friends are overreacting when it comes incidents that might involve race, but perhaps they feel like they have to justify their privilege in some way or have something to prove to their parents, whose struggles with race relations have been more extreme. Maybe some of the kids' reactions when they think they are being discriminated against racially (like when Martine pats Benji on the head at work and they read it as a demeaning, racist gesture that they should respond to or possibly get back at Martine for) is their way of trying to apply the same resilience about race that their parents needed during the Civil Rights Movement.
The connection can be interpreted in a few different directions, but I see it as either: 1.) Benji and his friends think they have to justify their relatively privileged lives because of parents' struggles, or 2.) they are accustomed to being sensitive to race relations because of their prior experiences and what they have learned from their parents, and just naturally react strongly to implications of how being black influences their lives. It will be interesting to see how this theme is illustrated throughout the remainder of the novel. Getting more details about Benji's parents and other adults and their ideas about race may help understand Benji's attitude as a result.
One of the differences between Benji's generation and his parents' that I noticed early on is their respective relationships to the Civil Rights Movement. Benji and his brother Reggie were both born after the peak of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, so they never experienced the more extreme forms of segregation that his parents have endured. Another sign of the disconnect Benji has from the Civil Rights Movement is articulated as early as the first chapter of the novel, when Benji discusses not knowing much about many famous black people. On page 13 of my book (the hardcover version), Whitehead writes,
"One of my uncles would be over and mention Marcus Garvey and I'd ask, 'Who's that?,' as the eyes of all the adults in the room slitted for a sad round of tsk-tsking. 'Who's Toussaint L'Ouverture?' I'd stupidly inquire, and my father would shoot back, 'You don't know who Toussaint L'Ouverture is? What do they teach you at that fancy school I bust my ass to send you to?' Not 'Iconic Figures of Black Nationalism,' that's for sure."
There is an awkward difference between Benji's obliviousness to pivotal figures in Black history and his parents' noticing and possibly even being a part of the Civil Rights Movement and its immediate effects. This passage from the first chapter of Sag Harbor illustrates that it can be uncomfortable for Benji to ask about aspects of the Civil Rights Movement simply because it is so engrained in his parents' lives that they can't believe he isn't more attuned to or knowledgeable of it.
On a related note, I think readers of Sag Harbor could see Benji and his friends' toughness, awareness, or--what some people in class have suggested--oversensitivity when it comes to the role of race in their lives as a reflection of their parents' earlier struggles with how they were treated for being black. The kids have been privileged as far as their socioeconomic status their entire lives, while their parents had to endure growing up in a different, racially-segregated time. This is not to say that Benji and his friends are overreacting when it comes incidents that might involve race, but perhaps they feel like they have to justify their privilege in some way or have something to prove to their parents, whose struggles with race relations have been more extreme. Maybe some of the kids' reactions when they think they are being discriminated against racially (like when Martine pats Benji on the head at work and they read it as a demeaning, racist gesture that they should respond to or possibly get back at Martine for) is their way of trying to apply the same resilience about race that their parents needed during the Civil Rights Movement.
The connection can be interpreted in a few different directions, but I see it as either: 1.) Benji and his friends think they have to justify their relatively privileged lives because of parents' struggles, or 2.) they are accustomed to being sensitive to race relations because of their prior experiences and what they have learned from their parents, and just naturally react strongly to implications of how being black influences their lives. It will be interesting to see how this theme is illustrated throughout the remainder of the novel. Getting more details about Benji's parents and other adults and their ideas about race may help understand Benji's attitude as a result.
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