The Parallels Between Benji Cooper and Jason Taylor
Benji, 15 years old in 1985. Jason, 12 years old in 1982. These two young boys are the same age. But that is only the beginning of their similarities. Although these two are separated by class, race, and location (living completely across the ocean from one another), they relate to one another in spookily noticeable ways throughout the novel.
The first, most obvious, thing that is a shared similarity between them is their rather aggressive friend group circle. I am of course, in Jason’s case, referring more to before his “friendgroup” turned into vicious bullies. I think a feature of both of these friendgroups is their idea of practicality, how they are not necessarily friends by choice, but instead because options are so limited they are forced to hold onto this friendship. For Jason, it's because he goes to a small school, and needs to stick with the “cool” group to avoid harassment. For Benji, he must decide between hanging with the fellow Sag local boys, or hanging out at home, and obviously he is going to choose the boys. Another similarity in these friendgroups is the constant desperation to evade scrutinization by determining a fellow to be the butt of a joke. Both Benji and Jason’s crew are built upon this constant competition between the boys to assert themselves through this method of dogging on one another in order to gain this feeling of success.
Both Benji and Jason try to hide their true interests in order to better fit in with the guys around them. For Jason this is more obvious, as it's a major plot point that he must hide his enjoyment of writing, reading, and playing games. For Benji, he does at one point say that he “renounced all things dorky” (Colson 209). However his fitting in more so comes from how he feels a constant need to relate to experiences that aren't his own through mediums of music, and play, along with his friends. He’s constantly striving for a feeling of fitting in, the same way Jason is. Both boys feel this same inferiority due to their genuine interests along with a need to share interests with those around them.
Additionally, both boys come from problematic home lives, both have mothers that are constantly the subject of their father’s aggression. Both have fathers that aren’t the typical stereotype of alcoholics, but definitely still deal with major substance abuse issues. They both attempt to avoid their home lives due to these issues. They also relate in having a sibling that there is a bit of an alliance with, however there are also still moments in which such alliances are abandoned.
Finally, the sections that really inspired this blog for me are two specific scenes. The first is on page 208 in which Benji states ““exploring” the property, pretending scrub pines and gnarled bushes were alien territory. Trying to make unknown what was completely known.” This of course is reminiscent of Jason’s goals in the chapter Bridle Path, in which Jason attempts to “explore” a trail on a mysterious, terrifying quest, when it is however just a local walking trail that has been trekked a plenty of times by a variety of people, probably even Jason himself. This imaginative idea gets back at their dorky similarities, wanting to be heroes of quests they themselves create. Also in Bridle Path, Jason is almost attacked and ripped to shreds by Dobermans. A unique experience given the fact that he never is actually harmed, and is instead just threatened and left terrified. Benji had a similar experience a few years before 1985 (perhaps around 1982 when the experience happened to Jason!). This to me is the most fascinating similarity, due to the distinctive experience, and a lack of relatability for a majority of people.
Overall, there are honestly a lot of other similarities, as well as a notable amount of differences too. However, I want to make a point, that had these two boys known each other, they certainly could have had a lot of shared interests/opinions to converse about. Their similarities show that being a teen boy in the 80s is a rough and sometimes isolating experience, but there is often someone out there that may just understand what it's like to go through that. The experience of an 80s teen boy is something that transcends geographic location, race or class.
I agree, Miranda Isaacs, that Benji and Jason are super alike in many ways! I wonder if the two really could have connected and been friends, or if their insecurities and the expectations placed on them would prevent them from ever truly connecting. It also makes me wonder just how similar the experiences of the other boys (NP, Nick, the guys in Black Swan Green who were less relevant and who I therefore do not remember the names of, etc.) are, and if the only thing impeding real connection is these societal pressures of masculinity. Epic blog post. You get five big booms.
ReplyDeleteHi Miranda. This was a really good comparison between Jason and Benji, and you touched on a lot of interesting topics! I had never realized that the two kids are actually the same age in the canonical timeline between the two books. It's a really fun coincidence that is only exemplified by how similar the two characters are. I think that out of the five main characters in the books we've read this semester, Jason and Benji are definitely the most similar. Teenage boy culture definitely doesn't take kindly to those who don't follow the rules of the system. I will say that Jason probably had a harder time fitting in than Benji did, since Benji was more or less successful at conforming with his friend group throughout Sag Harbor. Great post overall!
ReplyDeleteIt's true that Benji and Jason are both closet nerds, at a time when it wasn't cool to be a nerd, if you can imagine such a thing. And remember that Benji is a couple of years beyond where Jason is at, and he is more adept at self-editing his nerdiness (after some incidents at school that made him toxic to be associated with, definite echoes of BSG). So we see him fitting in with his "crew" better than Jason does--the mockery and insults seem to be shared equally among them, and there's no sense that Benji is especially picked on. But it still means that he has to edit aspects of himself, or at least absorb a bit of gentle mockery about his penchant for listening to European post-punk and goth music. And there's the same sense of the community being *random*--Jason doesn't *choose* the Spook-adjacent tough guys to be his friends; they are the group at the top of the hierarchy, and he needs to try to advance within that system. Benji just happens to grow up with this particular cohort at Sag Harbor, and as they get older, they grow apart--this summertime episode in their lives becomes more limited, less influential.
ReplyDeleteI would say that both of them learn some important lessons about these social dynamics as the novels unfold, and that means that both of them are better equipped to leave these scenes behind at the end. They might harbor some nostalgia for these periods in their lives, but Jason is about to make new friends and be part of a new community in Cheltenham when the novel ends, and Benji is ready to go back to school in his new combat boots and plaid jacket. He's on his way to following Elena's lead, which entails leaving behind the whole Sag scene, losing touch with "the crew." As far as we can tell, when he learns that one of his friends has been paralyzed and one killed by "drug-related gun violence," her reads about it in the newspaper.