The (lack of) Rose-Colored Glasses in Sag Harbor
The (lack of) Rose-Colored Glasses in Sag Harbor
Sag Harbor is a coming of age story about Benji, the younger version of the narrator, Ben. It follows an impactful summer in Benji’s life that directly mirrors certain personality traits and opinions he has even as an adult. In class we have talked about this book in terms of its nostalgic elements, but the aspects of this book that mirror the present seem to go directly against that. He is trying to relive his past in order to tell us a cohesive story, and through the evident work he put into making this understandable to readers, he also shows us the intense trauma that this part of his life holds. Many events—including the BB gun incident, the freezer incident, and his general feelings of being behind—also show how closely related his current self is to his old self, especially through his trauma.
One of the first examples we see in the book of his connection to the present is in the form of the freezer incident. His manager at work pats him on the head, and through his friends’ interpretation it is patronizing and racist. He usually would respond with violence, as prompted by his dad. But this time he takes the revenge into his own hands, leaving the freezer door open at work, potentially costing the manager hundreds of dollars. Because this is one of the first instances in which Benji decides to do something on his own, there is a higher level of guilt associated with the action. Even to this day it still haunts him, showing that this strong moral compass was always there, but as a teenager his ego needed to come first (Whitehead 143-144). Another example we see holds a physical reminder as well: the BB gun bullet in his eye. That summer, he and his friends were really into playing with guns, and they decided to have a BB gun fight with each other. During this fight, Randy shoots Benji in the eye, leaving a bullet lodged in there. Although it was a play fight, the self-preservation that each of his friends show and the violence that they are so attracted to is a clear sign of what is to come. Ben says that “For some of us, those were our first guns, a rehearsal, I’d like to say, all these years later now that one of us is dead and another is paralyzed from the waist down from actual bullets… that the game wasn’t so innocent after all. But that’s not true. We always fought for real. Only the nature of the fight changed, It always will.” (Whitehead 185-191) This quote is a reminder of Benji’s past when they used to fight as little kids, Benji’s present when he gets shot in the eye yet none of his friends try to help him, and Ben’s present when many of these same people have been permanently hurt by this slowly building violence. For Ben, this scene isn’t a nostalgic reminder of a stupid act and a fun summer, it instead foreshadows pain and violence to come from these initial steps.
I think the part of this book that most clearly shows the connection that this summer and Ben’s life have is the short scene with Elena. Benji is clearly still sucked into the world of Sag Harbor, unaware of the trauma in his life, but Elena bursts his bubble. She tells him to get out of the house as soon as possible because life will be better after, and while he doesn’t consciously understand what she means in the moment, he reflects on his summer from this view of his life (283-285). We often talk about nostalgia as painting memories in a brighter light, but this comment paints the memories of his summer in a duller light. He now remembers this ignorant, blissful summer for the intricacies that he didn’t see before. Ben sees a trauma that Benji completely disregards, which gives us a different view of the story than what might have actually happened in Benji’s unbiased perspective. I think this might make the story deeper but it also creates a connection to Benji’s older self in a painful way. Unlike nostalgia which roots people in the beauty of their past, his trauma and realization rooted his past self in his future trauma.
Work Cited
Whitehead, Colson. Sag Harbor. Penguin Random House, 2009
Hi Praachi, I definitely agree that this summer was a traumatic experience for Benji, but he wasn't able to tell since he thought everything was just going normally. This summer was foreshadowing for the difficulties that lie ahead for him as a young man, and as the narrator noticed, the nature of fighting changes until it becomes more and more dangerous.
ReplyDeleteHi praachi!! you offer some really interesting insight into the painful experience Benji looks back on and shows his deep connection with Sag Harbor. The contrast between the typical happy thoughts nostalgia is associated with and the traumatic longing memories Ben has are very interesting- I'm glad you called attention to this!! great blog :)
ReplyDeleteIt's really interesting (and also very sad) that as Benji ages we see him lose his sense of nostalgia. When Benji reminisces on his earlier self, he's so nostalgic for that part of his life. When Ben reflects on the Benji in this book, there's not really any nostalgia he feels, just the sense of his more recent realizations about his life. That's a really unique part of this book, where the narrator's current self reflects on his old self and gives a new perspective to contrast with the perspective we're supposed to be reading through.
ReplyDeleteHi Praachi! I thought this was a really strong blog post that explored the deeper and more painful side of Benji’s story. I especially liked how you pointed out that the book isn’t just about nostalgia, but also about the lasting effects of trauma. It really made me see how the adult Ben is shaped by everything that happened that summer. Great job!
ReplyDelete"Ben sees a trauma that Benji completely disregards" is a wonderful summation of these ambiguous nostalgia dynamics. We repeatedly get the sense, not necessarily that Benji is "wrong" in his initial understanding of these experiences, but that he has no capacity to understand at the time. He doesn't necessarily experience the tension with his father AS trauma--in fact, he feels like he "escapes" in "To Prevent Flare-Ups" because his mother ends up bearing the brunt this time. But it's pretty clear, looking back, that everything in this chapter points to Benji's trauma--the mere fact that he is reflexively tracking and keeping count of every time his father opens the fridge shows that his mind has been profoundly affected, even if he's just sitting there looking bored. One of Ben's more memorable lines, for me, is when he says "Jonni Waffle was a family. And my experience of family is you didn't ask too many questions." Benji just keeps his head down and tries to survive, and he has no capacity to explain or justify crazy stuff like leaving the freezer door open. All he can do is try to show us how they lived. It can only be made sense of in retrospect, and it seems like BEN understands how dysfunctional and traumatizing this stuff would have been, even if he didn't speak of it in these terms at the time.
ReplyDeleteHi Praachi! I think the idea that Ben is understanding Benji's traumas so much more than Benji could've during his own childhood is really interesting. There is definitely a way this book could've gone where Benji's trauma is made fun of or brushed off as silly and unimportant, but it's a really interesting and important narrative choice that Ben is always the looming voice of reason and reality in these traumatic scenes.
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