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.
Hi Ruby, I also think that the fragility of Benji's friend group could also relate to the development of Hip-Hop. Originally, it starts off as nice, but it quickly escalates to a point where it becomes dangerous to stay. I think that as the generations move on, there's a disillusionment with Sag Harbor, which could explain why these friendships are no longer as solid as they used to be.
ReplyDeleteHi Ruby!! I like that you focused on his friendships, its a unique topic. I think your blog really gives perspective to how Benji's friendship dynamic functions. They are fragile, and at any moment can break down just like Bobby and N.P.'s relationships. I like how you related the two situations (Benji and Bobby + N.P.) in the conclusion of your blog. Nice blog!!
ReplyDeleteThese friendships were honestly such a crazy thing to read about, and I'm glad you did your blog on them! I think we often feel like friendships are good things for everyone but for little Benji that definitely isn't true. I love the ways you notice him trying to rationalize his friends behavior because it is so sad to read about. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that Benji's friends weren't really reliable at all! Another example being that they would always leave one person to walk and everyone else went in (Randy's?) car. I feel like Benji, who's sometimes on the outer part of this circle, tries to justify it because he thinks his friends are always in the right. Ben's later mention of how his friend group fell apart makes me wonder; (how or why) did Benji eventually realize that his friends weren't very nice to him?
ReplyDeleteHi Ruby! I really enjoyed your analysis of Benji’s friendships and how you showed their fragile and superficial nature. I thought your examples from the BB gun fight and the concert perfectly illustrated how the group cared more about themselves than each other. Your post gave me a new perspective on why those friendships didn’t stand the test of time. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteHi Ruby, I like how you contrasted the friendship of Benji and the Sag Harbor boys with that of their parents. I find it interesting that Ben describes the fact that he and his friends separated from one another in a tone that isn't sad or remorseful, but instead factual and lacking emotion. While this is the way Ben narrates, it still shows that he wasn't really too sad about it and maybe is somewhat thankful that they ended up not bringing him down too. Overall, nice post!
ReplyDeleteHello Ruby!! You did such a good job at picking his friendships apart. I feel like there's something about a summer-long experience that cultivates this situation where things either go perfectly or horribly. In this case, the foundations for a tradition, or a bond that won't last long. But also with its short time-frame, there isn't a whole lot of time to get particularly close, and I think this is why his retellings aren't filled with a whole lot of emotion; there wasn't much betrayal or anything that would fire him up, rather, it was kind of just an individual situation. Great blog!!
ReplyDeleteBen goes into scant detail about any of these later developments, but it is striking how he just casually alludes to what sound like some pretty serious developments in his former friends' lives (people being killed by guns in drug-related violence). He never explains in any detail how he's "escaped," but once again I think we can point to Elena as an important key: she has left her Sag crew completely behind, to the point where she doesn't even tell the *family* when she's dipping into town to go out to eat with her German boyfriend. She encourages Benji to get out of the house and not look back, to get into a good school and "find his tribe." And it sounds like this is what he's done--he alludes to attending college when he talks about actually reading DuBois and marveling that this dude was eating chicken behind his grandparents' house, and he alludes to himself as attending dinner parties where the other guests are shocked to hear about how he once lived. It doesn't sound like any of his other friends went this same route, although he remains vague about who did what, and it sure seems like Bobby is poised to go off to college and further refine his "prep school militant" persona. The elegiac tone at the end of the novel sure makes it sound like 1985 could be Benji's final summer in Sag, and it's clear that adult Ben is not going "out" every summer (he has to tour the old spots in preparation for writing the book, and he alludes to what has changed since 1985). As you note, the depictions of himself among his "crew" make it pretty clear that there isn't much to draw him back there. As Elena's example suggests, Sag is something you "outgrow."
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