Is Jes Grew Destined to Die?

 Is Jes Grew Destined to Die?

Mambo Jumbo ends on a melancholic but hopeful note, with Jes Grew dying out, but also with Papa La Bas ensuring everyone that “we will miss it for a while but it will come back, and when it returns we will see that it never left” (Reed 204). But how true is Papa La Bas? Is Jes Grew destined to come back, and will it always be stuck in the cycle of emerging and being suppressed?

In Mumbo Jumbo, Jes Grew is a metaphor for how small cultural movements can end up influencing large groups of people, and how Atonist–– or people who put white, European standards on a pedestal––react negatively to these movements. In Mumbo Jumbo, Jes Grew is an illness that is spreading across the nation causing people to dance and listen to jazz music. In response to this, Hinkle Von Vampton, as an attempt to infiltrate Jes Grew and destroy it from the inside out, creates the “talking android.” The talking android is a man who will pose as a part of the Jes Grew movement, in the case of Mumbo Jumbo the Harlem Renaissance, and create art so vile and disgusting that it breaks the movement apart. 

In a lot of ways, the talking android mirrors a phenomenon that happened naturally in America all throughout the twentieth century and continues to happen today. This phenomenon is when certain things will become popular, whether that be styles of music, clothing, or art, and will quickly be taken over by the mainstream, so that the point of the art is no longer strictly artistic, but is now monetary. This effectively kills the “Jes Grew” aspect of whatever is becoming popular, because the minute something is made for money more than for art is the minute it loses its authenticity. 

Is this phenomenon always going to exist? We’ve seen it throughout history with music styles like RnB, Rap, and Rock n’ Roll losing its authenticity when becoming mainstream and being taken over by people who didn’t create it. We’ve also seen it with certain styles losing their authenticity becoming mainstream, or with restaurants that claim to be food from different countries but are really americanized versions of those foods that don’t resemble the real thing in the slightest. In all of these circumstances, the Jes Grew element dies when the replica becomes mainstream. 

So, is this inevitable? Are we destined to never have anything stay authentic forever, because they are too often being taken over by the fake mainstream version? Unfortunately, I think it is. I think that nothing can become so ubiquitous in certain communities, in the way that Jes Grew tends to, without being observed and stolen by someone who pushes it to the mainstream and makes it lose all of its value. Fortunately, though, I think Papa La Bas has a point. While one example of Jes Grew is dying, another one is being born, something completely new and original and authentic, and the cycle is repeating itself. While Jes Grew is impossible to keep alive in its original form, new forms are constantly emerging, and the cycle is constantly continuing. 

Reed, Ishmael. Mumbo Jumbo. Scribner, 1996.

Ragtime: An Ironic Display of the Failure of the American Dream

 Ragtime: An Ironic Display of the Failure of the American Dream

In Ragtime, we see different iterations of the artificial “American Dream” illustrated through different characters. For some, the American Dream is a reality: the nuclear family with a hard-working father and housewife mother, Evelyn Nesbit, the woman born poor who found fame and fortune, and the capitalist tycoons Henry Ford and J.P. Morgan building their empires and rolling in their riches. Other characters represent a critique of the American Dream: Tateh, the poor socialist, Emma Goldman, the revolutionary anarchist, and Coalhouse Walker, the respectable man turned revolutionary terrorist all represent the artificial nature of the American Dream and the pushback against it as an ideology. 

Everything is treated with a good deal of irony in Ragtime, and the characters living the "American Dream” are no exception. The most obvious examples are Henry Ford, who is depicted as an emotionless machine focused on nothing but profit and efficiency, allotting only “sixty seconds on his pocket watch for a display of sentiment” after achieving his goals and J.P. Morgan, who is depicted as a delusional hyper-capitalist who thinks he is the reincarnation of an ancient Pharaoh (Doctorow 136). These two are clear representations of the evil of capitalism, and how the people who benefit from it become monstrously selfish. The family and Evelyn Nesbit, on the other hand, act as examples of how capitalism hurts everyone, even people who benefit from it. The family is very well off, with the father coming from a wealthy family, and having “attended Groton and then Harvard,” and are clear examples of the middle class American Dream (Doctorow 215). Despite this, Mother and Father’s relationship seems completely loveless, Mother’s Younger Brother feels alienated by his family and trapped among people completely different from him, and the Little Boy lives completely inside his own head, with no significant connection to any of his family members. The family is an example of how the “American Dream” seems good from the outside, but is ultimately artificial, leaving everyone more divided in the end. Evelyn Nesbit is the clearest example of the failure of capitalism. Despite having the perfect American story of rags to riches, from a nobody to a national celebrity, she is famous for all the wrong reasons, and suffers due to her fame. Evelyn is rich only because of her husband, who ended up being an abusive murderer, and the only thing she has gained from her newfound fame is constant speculation on her private life and harsh scrutiny from news outlets daily. All of these characters represent different versions of the failure of capitalism: the greed that feeds into it, its artificial perfection, and the backlash that comes from the “Amercian Dream.”

Other characters in Ragtime reflect the other side of capitalism: those who don’t benefit from it and those who critique it. The clearest example of a critic of capitalism is Emma Goldman, the voice of reason throughout the novel. Emma Goldman comes in every few chapters to remind the reader of the effects of capitalism, and how it connects back to everything. She interacts with a lot of the characters who benefit from capitalism, talking sense into Mothers Younger Brother and Evelyn Nesbit about how they are victims of capitalism as much as anyone else. She tells Evelyn that she is a “creature of capitalism” and that her beauty is “false and old and useless” (Doctorow 57). Tateh is another character who begins as a critic of capitalism, but ends up representing the American Dream just the same. Even though he started out as a staunch socialist, once Tateh’s picture book sells enough copies, he gives up all of his ideals and effectively sells out, choosing a life of comfort and luxury over his old life in the slums. While this might seem like a success story at first, Doctorow uses Tateh as a representation of someone losing his values and falling into the trap of capitalism, throwing away everything he’s believed in and everyone he’s fought for once he gets a promising new opportunity. Coalhouse Walker represents the failure of the free market aspect of capitalism that tells us that if we work hard enough, we can win too. Coalhouse Walker was a successful musician, he was educated, well-spoken, and well dressed. Coalhouse Walker began as a figure who represented the success of capitalism; a man who, against all odds and despite racial oppression, climbed his way to the top. All of this success was represented in his pride and joy, his Model T. Despite all of this, though, Coalhouse Walker still suffers from the unjust nature of capitalism. He has effectively reached the "American Dream,” engaged with a child and a respectable job, but all of this is thrown away due to an encounter with some racist firefighters. When these firefighters vandalize his car, they are vandalizing the one item that most represents his success and his pride. This sends Coalhouse Walker into a revenge-fueled rampage, burning down buildings and creating his own revolutionary group. These characters represent the critiques of capitalism: the counter-movement that exists to fight against it, those who sell out their ideals and values in exchange for money, and those who, despite working just as hard as everyone else, can never truly benefit from capitalism because it is a fundamentally unfair system. 

The Fragility of Summer Friendships in Sag Harbor

 The Fragility of Summer Friendships in Sag Harbor

Throughout Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor, the narrator Ben ominously teases the less than fortunate fates of his friends from his childhood, hinting at the fact that he and his friends from Sag Harbor don't speak much anymore, and that somewhere in the midst of each of their coming-of-ages, they diverged from each other’s paths. This seems almost hard to believe in the context of the other Sag Harbor-born friendships, those who have lasted generations and laid the foundations for the entire community. To the adults in Sag Harbor, the friendships they made during the summers of their childhood formed a strong enough bond to last a lifetime, picking up each time they see each other like no time has passed at all. So what happened to Benji and his friends? How did they get so disconnected from one another?

The hints at the lack of substance in Benji’s friend group is there from the beginning of the novel. What looks on the surface like teasing and harmless pranks is revealed as a much more problematic dynamic at the end of the chapter titled “The Gangsters.” Benji and his friends choose to have a BB gun fight, but Benji, feeling apprehensive about the safety of the BB gun fight and not trusting his friends’ responsibility with the BB guns, proposes some rules and safety measures to ensure no one gets hurt. None of Benji’s friends care to listen to his proposals for safety measures, though, as they feel like taking precautions makes them seem less tough. When Benji takes out his safety goggles on the day of the BB gun fight, Marcus replies “I’m not wearing any pussy-ass goggles,” despite having agreed to the idea a few days before (Whitehead 183). When the group makes the rule that Randy can’t pump his gun more than twice, because the shots hurt too much, he doesn’t end up taking it seriously. At the end of the chapter, Randy ends up shooting Benji in the eye, hard enough that it was clear he pumped it more than twice, since it easily broke the skin. Benji and Reggie are adamant that Benji needs to go to the hospital because his eye could get infected, but none of his friends, even the ones with access to cars, offer to help him, because they’re too afraid of getting in trouble. Benji justifies the ways he and his friends treat each other with the excuse that they do care for each other, but the way they show that care is through insults, but when Benji is really in need of help, none of his friends are there for him. 

Though Benji tries to rationalize the way that he and his friends treat each other, it’s clear that there isn’t much genuine care or friendship underneath the jokes and insults. This is exposed again before the U.T.F.O concert. Before the concert, when N.P. is sure that he has a way to get himself, Marcus, and the cousins into the concert, he bluntly tells Benji that he might have to sit this one out, and that there was nothing N.P. could do about it. Once the bouncer tells them that maybe the boys could get in, but there’s no way he’s letting the cousins in because they look too young, N.P. quickly changes his mind, choosing to see the concert with Benji. He tells the cousins that they’ll have to leave without him, as Ben puts it, “like a soldier explaining the facts of war” (Whitehead 259). While this might not seem like a big deal––and it wouldn't be if it was a one time thing––but we see that this decision ends up costing N.P. and Bobby their relationships, with the girls being so mad at being ditched that they break up with the boys. Seeing this trend, it’s not hard to imagine that a similar thing could have happened with Benji’s entire friend group. With everybody only focused on what is best for themselves, and showing little to no care for each other, Benji’s friend group is fragile and superficial, and it’s not surprising that these friendships didn’t last.

The Polarized Gender Dynamics of Black Swan Green

 The Polarized Gender Dynamics of Black Swan Green 

The gender dynamics portrayed in Black Swan Green are very polarizing, and they force Jason to choose between femininity and masculinity. As a teenage boy, Jason is expected to present in a hegemonically masculine way; he is expected to be a “hard-knock” and not to care about the consequences of his actions, because these are socially masculine traits, and if he doesn’t act this way, he will be deemed a “sissy” and berated for his femininity. While Jason is internally conflicted about these gender dynamics––his aspiring social persona conflicting with his love for poetry––he goes along with them anyway, refusing to behave in certain ways because he deems them “gay.” Jason isn’t only experiencing polarizing gender dynamics in his social life, though; in Jason’s home life, he experiences his mother and sister going against his dad’s attempt at acting as a traditionally masculine father and husband. We see Jason’s father, Michael, insult women in an attempt to win the approval of other men, and we see him struggle with the prospect of his wife being a second breadwinner in the family, threatening his masculinity. We see Jason’s mother, Helena, and sister, Julia, becoming more respected than Michael in Jason’s eyes for their eloquence and ambition in their careers. Jason is stuck between femininity and masculinity in both his social and personal life, and we see him shift away from the societal expectation of masculinity as his coming-of-age progresses. 

In his social life, Jason is constantly trying to perform masculinity for his peers. He is constantly editing himself, hoping that nothing he does comes across as “gay,” and he is sure that one of the worst things that could ever happen to him would be for his poetry to be seen by his peers. Jason’s public persona is heavily edited, and not reflective of his true interests. In reality, Jason loves poetry; it’s clear by the way that he describes poetry as almost involuntary, feeling a poem come to him and having to write it. He attempts to publish his poetry, he actively seeks advice to make his poetry better, he clearly cares. But still, despite the clear care he has for poetry, and the ways that his poetry allows him to express his emotions freely and without judgement, he would never admit it publicly. Even to Madame Crommelynck, he admits that he is ashamed of writing poetry because it’s “sort of…gay” and “what creeps and poofters do” (Mitchell 153). Despite the fact that Maname Crommelynck is the safest person for Jason to discuss his poetry with, he still hides behind the shame that it’s “gay,” and that he should never admit it publicly. Though Jason faces a lot of internal struggle between his “feminine” interests and his outward “masculine” appearance, as the novel progresses, he gets more comfortable with not being the classic “hard-knock” masculine guy. As he gets more comfortable standing up to his bullies, he doesn’t do so by physically fighting him, but by using his words and his intelligence, two things that he hadn’t appreciated or been comfortable using earlier in the novel. When Jason is with Holly Deblin at the dance, he describes the song playing as beautiful, and remarks that “words like ‘beautiful’ you can’t use with boys you can use with girls” (Mitchell 175). To me, this marks a very important shift in Jason’s awareness of the gender dynamics of his world, and his comfort in his own masculinity. He understands that you can't use words like “beautiful” with guys, but that doesn’t stop him from using it with Holly Deblin. Throughout Jason’s coming-of-age, he becomes more comfortable in his social masculinity, and becomes less afraid to embrace the more feminine aspects of his personality.

Apart from the gender polarization in his social life, Jason also feels pulled between the feminine and masculine sides of his home life, as well. In the beginning of the novel, Jason respects his father and criticizes him very little. He idolizes his cousin, Hugo, for being so carefree and masculine, and looks to him for guidance. On the other hand, he doesn’t really see his sister as a viable figure of guidance in his life and isn’t very close with her, and he isn’t sure whether or not to side with his father or his mother when they argue. As Jason matures, he begins to look at Julia for guidance more and more. Julia, who clearly sides with her mom in most of their parents’ arguments, prompts Jason to think more critically about the issues between his mom and his dad and who is at the root of them. Jason becomes more aware when his dad makes misogynistic comments or when he sucks up to the other men in his life in an attempt to win their approval. When Michael makes a misogynistic comment to their gardener, Jason notes that the gardener responds with “a gardener’s nod. Not an ally’s nod,” showing Jason’s awareness of the anti-social aspects of his father’s misogynistic behaviour (Mitchell 117). The culmination of this struggle between the two sides of Jason’s family happens in Souvenirs, when Michael embarrasses Jason by sucking up to Mr. Craig Salt and throwing Jason under the bus, showing how little backbone he actually has, and Helena impresses Jason by dealing with the girls in her shop who were trying to steal from her. Jason is completely disillusioned by his father’s behavior, and surprised and impressed by his mother’s, giving him a new outlook on the two of them. By the end of the novel, Jason is also clearly relying on Julia much for guidance much more than he had in the earlier chapters. She gives him the confidence to go to the dance, supports him through his parent’s divorce, and urges him to keep writing. As Jason experiences his coming-of-age, he begins relying on and respecting the female role models in his life more than his male role models, which gives him a more nuanced outlook on the world than he had earlier in the novel, and gives him the courage to embrace his more feminine traits.

Sexuality as a Fleeting Connection Between Alison and Bruce

 Sexuality as a Fleeting Connection Between Alison and Bruce

In Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Alison explicitly contrasts her own sexuality to that of her father. While she and Bruce didn’t have a close relationship during his lifetime, they have one crucial trait in common, their sexuality, which causes a confusing connection that Alison has to navigate after her father’s death. Alison describes her relationship with her father Bruce as distant, recalling feeling like nothing but a piece of furniture or an extra set of hands for his constant renovations on their house. Throughout her childhood, she illustrates her father as uncaring and cold, never feeling comfortable enough for any physical affection or open enough to confide in. She illustrates her family as completely separate, each in their own spaces, working on their own projects, only coming together when absolutely necessary; she describes that “the more gratification we found in our own geniuses, the more isolated we grew” (Bechdel 134). Despite the fact that Alison felt so disconnected to her father during her childhood, once she became a young adult, their relationship took a slight turn. 

Once Bruce realizes that they have similar interests in literature, he takes it as an opportunity to connect with her––granted, this connection is slightly odd, with him playing more of a teacher figure than a father figure, but still, a connection nonetheless––and begins to share and discuss his favorite books with her. Bruce ends up using his new role as a provider of literature for Alison as a way to reach out to her; when he gives her Collette’s autobiography to read, she wonders if this choice was intentional. She later asks Bruce if he “knew what [he was] doing” by having her read this autobiography, to which he responds “I didn’t really. It was just a guess. I guess there was some kind of… identification” (Bechdel 220). By bringing up this book, Alison sparks one of the most honest conversations we see her have with Bruce about his life. Literature plays a big role in connecting Alison and Burce, and their connection through literature drives most of their connection through sexuality.  

The moment that Alison is told about her Father’s affairs with men, it is initially a shock, but later leads her to be more open with her father. When Helen tells Alison about her father’s sexuality, it is in reaction to Alison’s own coming out, directly linking the two; if Alison had never come out, she might not have ever been told about her father’s sexuality during his lifetime. Despite the fact that his sexuality is such a shame in his life, Bruce is surprisingly open with Alison about his sexuality, and it ends up bringing the two together in an unexpected way. When Alison comes out to her parents, she is doing so with the assumption that they wouldn’t understand, because they’ve never had to go through what she’s going through, but in reality, her father has gone through something very similar. While Alison is juggling with the idea of living as an out gay person––with her mother advising against it––Bruce admits that “There’ve been a few times I thought I might have preferred to take a stand” (Bechdel 211). Bruce clearly handled the issue of his sexuality very differently than Alison, but he has a better sense of what she’s going through than what Alison had originally assumed, and is able to give advice and opinions based on his own lived experiences. Alison had always felt like she had nothing to connect with her father about, and had felt like her father wanted nothing to do with her life or her interests, but when she comes out to him, it opens a door for a connection that she never knew existed. The biggest shame in Bruce’s life becomes one of the core things that connects him to his daughter. 

Throughout the novel, Alison contrasts the way she handled her sexuality with the way her father did, and explicitly compares them to each other. She compares old pictures of her father to pictures of her at the same age, wondering if he was feeling the same way that she was, wondering how similar their experiences were. This is a very confusing thing for Alison to contemplate, wondering how her father’s experiences compared to her own, and having to look back on his life without him, wondering what the truth is behind each picture he took and each letter he wrote. Alison and Bruce have more in common than Alison knew for a majority of her lifetime, but the trait that connects them is one that Bruce spent his entire life trying to hide, leaving Alison little to nothing to go off of while trying to retrospectively search for a connection between them. Bruce’s story is one of a million “what if’s,” and with Bruce dead, Alison has no choice but to guess what her father’s story was, and what it could have been. After a lifetime of trying to find a connection with her father, once she finally (and very unexpectedly) finds one, it turns out to be his deepest shame, and something he would never openly live out.

The Perpetual Threat of The Bell Jar

 The Perpetual Threat of The Bell Jar

After Esther has received all of her shock treatments, and has been essentially “cured” of her depression, she describes the metaphorical bell jar that had been trapping her finally being lifted. She describes a feeling of breathing fresh air and being able to see the world without the distorted lens of the bell jar. At the end of the book, the bell jar is still lifted, and Esther is finally able to begin imagining her future again, starting where she left off after the mental breakdown she describes as a “six month lapse” (Plath 236). Esther seems to be planning to go back to business as usual; she will go back to school, continue her streak of academic achievement, and reach the accomplishments she’s been working for her whole life. There is one line, though, that sticks out through all of this seemingly hopeful description of the future that has now been opened back up to her. Esther isn’t actually sure about her future, and how realistic all of these plans are for her. As she describes it, “How did I know that someday––at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere––the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn’t descend again?” (Plath 241). This sentence leaves the reader sharing some of Esther’s doubts about the viability of her future. It establishes the fact that the bell jar isn’t gone, and it won’t ever be, but it is only “[hanging], suspended, a few feet above [her] head” (Plath 214). The way that Sylvia Plath chooses to describe the bell jar leaves room for speculation on whether or not someone can ever truly be free of the distortions of the bell jar. 

This theme of the perpetually looming bell jar is consistent with Plath’s poetry, most notably her poem Lady Lazarus. In Lady Lazarus, Plath details her descent back into depression and suicidal ideation: “I am only thirty. / And like a cat I have nine times to die. / What a trash / To annihilate each decade” (Plath). Plath describes her depression as repeating every ten years, and writes Lady Lazarus as if she is conscious of its return. She asserts that “Dying / Is an art, like everything else. / I do it exceptionally well,” and that, “Out of the ash / I rise with my red hair / And I eat men like air.” (Plath). In Lady Lazarus, Plath describes the same phenomenon that Esther was afraid of. The bell jar, for Plath, never really went away, and as it looms over her, she can recognize it and predict the effect it will have on her. Tragically, she assumes that this cycle will continue, and she will survive this next attempt, just like she survived her last one. Even if you can predict the bell jar falling, you can’t predict the effect it will have on you, and the things you will do while it is over you. 

Plath leaves the ending of The Bell Jar up to the reader’s interpretation; while Esther is doing better after her treatment, she still describes the bell jar looming over her and the memories of the things she’s gone through staying with her forever. In her fiction as well as her poetry, Plath describes the bell jar and its distortions as something that can never truly be cured, and will continue to loom over the people affected by it.

Holden Caulfield, Master of Deflection

 Holden Caulfield, Master of Deflection

The most memorable characteristic about Holden Caulfield is that he complains about almost everything. He is the character that created the stereotype of “teenage angst,” simply because of the sheer amount of time he spends detailing his elaborate complaints with almost every person, social setting, or societal norm that he comes across. What struck me about the things that he complains about, though, is how he makes sure to carefully avoid all of the truly traumatic things that he has experienced. The thing that I found most shocking about Holden’s account of waking up to Mr. Antolini patting his head is that he admits that this kind of “perverty” thing has happened to him “about twenty times since [he] was a kid” (Sallinger 193). This isn’t necessarily a surprising admission, considering that Holden has been in all-boys prep schools for his entire education, but what is surprising is that he has never once brought it up before as one of the many things he finds institutionally messed up about the prep school environment. He instead chooses to focus on how little authority these teachers have over him and how often they try to give him lectures, making a joke of the teachers to avoid talking about the actual bad things they've done. 

This isn’t the only time that Holden glosses over something truly traumatic to talk about something less important. He briefly mentions James Castle, the boy at Elkton Hills that, while getting beat up by other students, chose to jump out of the window to his own death instead of taking back his comment that another student was “conceited” (Sallinger 170). Holden mentions this surprisingly late in the book, considering the fact that he has spent the last 170 pages talking about how terribly mean boys at these prep schools can be. While Holden mentions the more petty things that these boys have done, like their secret fraternities that don’t admit boys who are “too pimply,” and their general mistreatment of women, he chooses to wait to mention the time that this bullying directly led to a boy’s death. He doesn’t describe this event as tragic or traumatic, though, instead choosing to see it as heroic and noble, setting James Castle as some sort of martyr for a good cause. In reality, James Castle’s story is not heroic at all, it’s just tragic. There is nothing heroic about being beat up so badly that the best option is to fall to your own death; but Holden doesn’t see it that way. 

Holden can’t grasp the gravity of some of his experiences. He doesn’t acknowledge that predatory older teachers are dangerous, not just another annoying thing that he “can’t stand.” He doesn’t choose to see James Castle as a tragic suicide at the hands of the abusive and dangerous nature of the all-boys schools he attends, choosing instead to view him as an iconic hero who stuck to his morals until his final breaths. Holden’s grievances with his world are not trivial; he might present them that way, his main problem with the system that he has grown up in being the amount of “phonies” that he has surrounded himself with, but the problems that he attempts to gloss over should actually be taken much more seriously. He might present his issues with boys his age as being annoyed with their phony antics and their elitist attitudes, but under that is a valid criticism that being a person who strays away from this norm can be very dangerous, and, as we’ve seen with Holden and James Castle, choosing not to conform to these norms can lead you to be a target for extreme violence at the hands of your peers. He might act like his only grievance with teachers is that they try too hard to demonstrate their authority over you, but under this is a reality that an alarming amount of adults in Holden’s life seem to have used their authority to take advantage of him. Holden actively glosses over the more real and traumatic experiences he has had with the institutions he is a part of, choosing instead to focus on surface level complaints with the way people act and dress, chalking it all up to a general sense of “phoniness” emanating from the people surrounding him.