Sahnan's Spectacular Stories

     As introduced in the beginning of the book, Sag Harbor is predominantly a vacation community, which is pretty much only populated during summer. Due to Benji and Reggie’s private school schedules, they get out of school a few days earlier than any of the other kids. Benji describes how empty the town is when they first arrive, and he introduces the concept in their community of “coming out”. In this case, the term is used to describe familiar families coming out to their vacation homes for the summer. This arrangement forms a tight knit community in which people, who are normally minorities as upper middle-class African-Americans back in New York create a kind of utopia for the summer. The community in Sag Harbor almost feels stagnant, frozen in time; filled with the same elders telling Benji stories about his grandparents, and acting simply as a backdrop to his own development. One especially interesting effect that the phenomenon of coming out has is how one can on...

My first impression of Jason Taylor was that he was very self conscious, and edited himself so much to others, to a point that no one really knew him (this is also similar to Holden and Esther). Jason really isn’t the “type” that all the other popular kids in his class are; he writes poetry, has nerdy interests, and has a stammer that he uses his extensive vocabulary to hide. Jason’s worst fear is that any of this humiliating information about him is revealed to his class, so he does all he can to hide it and fit in. Jason is so obsessed with the social politics of his grade and is desperate to move up from his current mid-ranked “position” in his class. He recognizes classmates, like Ross Wilcox, who didn’t used to be cool, and is bewildered by how they were able to move up. Jason begins taking any chance he can get to improve his social standing with the other kids, as well as keeping up the act of hiding his stammer and unpopular interests. One example of this is in “Bridle Path”, w...

 The opening scene of Fun Home places Bruce on the floor of their living room, holding Alison in the air. Alison immediately compares her own height and danger of falling to the Greek myth of Icarus, the figure who–after his father, Daedalus’ invention–flew too close to the sun and fell into the Aegean sea. At the start of the book, Bruce is Daedalus, and Alison is Icarus. However, in Fun Home, Alison says that she isn’t the one who falls, but Bruce is. Bruce’s ‘fall’ can be interpreted in different ways, but I think the sequencing of the book attempts to show his fall as how her perspective of him shifts. At the beginning of the book, Bruce’s character is much simpler; we know that he’s a perfectionist, has a short temper, and is generally very cold to his family. Despite her best efforts, Alison struggles to find meaningful connection and interaction with her father. For so much of Alison’s childhood, and even up to the months before Bruce dies, Alison barely knows about him....

  Success is a big theme throughout Esther’s entire academic career. She is often at the top of her class and receiving large amounts of scholarship money or participating in prestigious internships. The book starts out in New York City, where Esther has a summer internship editing a fashion magazine. Esther attends Harvard University during the school year and tells stories of acing physics tests for example while the rest of her class is struggling. Despite Esther’s great academic success, she often feels over her head or out of place in these prestigious environments. She describes being uncomfortable with Doreen’s adventures in New York, or with the extravagance of The Ladies Day Banquet . Beyond just feeling out of place in the big city, Esther feels as if she’s not even qualified to participate in this internship: she doesn’t have the same certainty about her career and future that so many of the women around her do. Esther’s boss at the magazine, Jay Cee, only makes Esther m...

In the few days that elapse throughout The Catcher in the Rye , we see Holden aimlessly wandering around New York City, picking fights he can’t win, and generally completely disregarding his health. During this time before he can return to his parents house, Holden seems almost completely powerless to his own actions. He doesn’t really enjoy a single thing he does, and he usually regrets everything the next morning. Holden’s condition gets worse and worse throughout the book, and we see him trying to grasp for anything to get his life back on track whilst also diving deeper into his depression. The truth is, Holden longs for control, it’s why he loves writing narratives where he has full power of how he depicts himself, as well as the people in his life. Holden’s need for a feeling of control over his own trajectory is demonstrated by his fear of change and resistance to grow up and fit into society like everyone else expects him to.  This is also the reason that Holden cherishes c...