Jason and the War

I was fascinated by how much Jason develops as a person over the course of Black Swan Green, especially considering he's quite young and the book takes place over one year. Over the course of each chapter, Jason matures in some way to a various degree of significance, and his way of looking at the world and himself is altered bit by bit. One striking example of this is the chapter "Rocks", where Jason is experiencing a war-like situation at home while England is embroiled in an actual war over the Falklands with Argentina. 

At home, Jason's mother, Helena, is attempting to model and design the house to her own liking and would like to purchase a rockery for the backyard - of course, this whole situation isn't just about the aesthetic of the yard but her way of asserting her own beings and agency that Jason's dad doesn't really pay attention to. The situation gets pretty rocky, I might say, and a lot of information about Jason's fathers dealings come out. Helena eventually gets the rockery installed but it's not what she imagined and the peace of the household is disturbed. At the same time, the Falkland's war isn't going too well and while the British media likes to portray it as a fight over British pride, something Jason is tuned into (he frequently quotes The Daily Mail), by the time the war is over and an acquaintance of Jason dies in the war, he understands the futility of the business of pride and victory - of course, this happens both in the context of the war and the rockery.

This portrays a fundamental shift in Jason's thinking of how he should present himself to the world - while before the chapter, he would have prided a Pyrrhic victory, he comes to understand the cost of such a victory. I think at the core of this is also how Jason perceives masculinity - the environment he grows up in teaches men and young boys to pride themselves on being brash and not caring much about those around them as long as they emerge "victorious". Jason's parents both engage in this "struggle", although I would argue that Jason's dad starts it as his being the "man of the house" somehow warrants him to go about his business without being questioned by his wife or kids. Jason however, is more sensitive than most boys around him in his dealings, and the commentary and state of war running alongside the situation in his household makes it so that he learns this lesson quite early that not everything is worth sacrificing for lofty pride and feeling the satisfactions of asserting ones manliness. The war too, is another manifestation of some form of toxic masculinity or toxic nationalism - the Falklands are really not that economically or culturally significant but for the British, they represent one of the last places where the sun of their empire still looms over. For this, they're willing to engage in a deadly and quite stupid war over a few islands that aren't even that nearby. Jason's perception of The Daily Mail commentary is quite assuming to watch therefore - at the start, he quotes them constantly but by the end, he's understood that there really is no truth to it.