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.
I feel like Uncle Nelson serves both as a bridge and deterrent between Benji's and his parents' generation. On one hand, Uncle Nelson is a "cooler" more relatable adult. He has qualities of both adults and children that help Benji and his friends connect to the older generation. At the same time, the way other adults act towards Uncle Nelson serve only to distance Benji and his friends from the adults. As for comparing Uncle Nelson to Sylvie, I agree the are quite similar. Both don't seek to draw the protagonists towards them, but the protagonists are attracted to their lifestyles anyways.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really intriguing connection. I think that it is also interesting that Uncle Nelson and Sylvie seem to live more care-free lives than the other adults in the novels. They act like kids at times, and they are more free-spirited. In Uncle Nelson's case, he only comes over from California to visit friends, but he seems more laid-back than the adults in Sag Harbor. Though he does not fit into the "Cosby Family" stereotype of an ideal lifestyle, he seems happier than the adults who live like this, but argue with one another and are much less perfect on the outside. Perhaps we can argue this with Sylvie as well. Though she isn't the typical adult, she is happier than most people her age.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great example of a comparison that never occurred to me until it came up in your section's discussion. At first glance, it sounds odd, but the more I think about it, it makes sense. Especially when Benji is implicitly defending Nelson by saying he doesn't fit into "their" value system--it allows us to see what might look like a life of "screwing up" or "failure" as instead an almost noble refusal to conform to some arbitrary and boring bourgeois standard.
ReplyDelete