Identity in Sag Harbor
Central to coming-of-age novels and Benji's journey is the discovery of one's identity and understanding that your identity doesn't just comprise of how you see yourself but how the world perceives you. Benji is relatively well-off and attends a elite private school in New York and his parents are both professionals. His summers are spent in Sag Harbor, pretty much cut off from everything else, and this seems to be similar to many other experiences children his other age might have, though the history of Sag Harbor as a place as well as the legacy his family has established here makes this experience even more unique.
In many ways, Benji and his life are emblematic of the life of teenagers in the 1980s. They eat junk food, sit in front of the TV all day during the summer, and are looked upon with disdain from adults who remember the good old days when teenagers actually did something substantial with their lives and didn't sit around being shitheads. However, attending a private school where the student body is predominantly white in a way, forces Benji to come to terms with being African-American and all the judgements and difficulties that accompany that. At home, Benji is instilled both with pride in being black and a respect for black culture and history while also being reminded that he's going to have to work harder and overcome more judgement to maintain his position or rise even further in society.
For a teenager coming to terms with both who they are in the world and both realizing that they're both lucky and have an insane amount of expectation to succeed and judgement tied to them can be overwhelming alongside the grueling coming of age experiences that every kid noes through. Many of these tensions in the Cooper household can be tied to the high expectations the parents have for Benji and Reggie which are inextricably tied into their identities of being successful and African American.
Great post, Janaki! I think that is a very good point you make that identity is not who you think you are, but instead how you are actually perceived by the world through your actions and self representation. However, this idea can be destructive when over-emphasized. The overly high expectations from the parents create problems and tension.
ReplyDeleteThis post is a really well-written description of the pressure that Benji and Reggie are placed in. I think the use of Sag Harbor as a setting for the novel further helped emphasize the "good old days" pressure that the adults around Benji are forcing upon him. In the book, we learn that Sag Harbor is a neighborhood built by African American people who made their way up the social ladder. In multiple points of the book, the adults in Sag Harbor almost passive-aggressively make Benji acknowledge that he is thankful for the scarifices that his predecessors made for him.
ReplyDeleteI agree, their exploration of discovering who they want to be is many times obstructed by outside pressures, including Benji and Reggie's dad. I think what makes it especially interesting is how Benji is still able to develop his coming-of-age story through events with his friends or even just moments by himself--like when he is at the concert. I really liked your post!
ReplyDeleteI agree that Identity seems like it's constantly hanging over Benji and his friends. They're always talking about race both at home and with his friends and it seems like they're constantly trying to reaffirm their own identity. The high expectations Benji has to deal with also seem to hang over him and affect his struggle with identity.
ReplyDeleteThe first sentence of this post really resonates with me. While he should be proud of his identity, he must also be aware of how the rest of the world will perceive his racial and cultural identity. I feel that his parents are very much aware of this fact as they did have to work hard to be where they’re at. Benji’s kind of stuck in a strange generation where he’s not really encouraged to work hard, although he definitely should. Great post!
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