In the chapter "Gangsters" of Sag Harbor, Benji Cooper goes out one evening to fight with his friends using BB guns. Benji lies down in an empty lot to ambush people, sees a firefly, digresses about fireflies, and then recalls us from this digression with the impact of a BB pellet at the space between his tear duct and brow.
Benji's explanation of fireflies highlights the fact that people only notice them when they light up. The rest of the time, when they are dark, people don't notice them. In the minds of people, the fireflies may as well not exist when they are not flashing. The people choose to characterize them only by the times when they are flashing; this is why they are called fireflies and not flies-that-sometimes-light-up-but-are-usually-dark. The important thing to realize is that most of the fireflies life is unnoticed.
For Benji during the summer, his parents only see a small slice of his life, since they spend most of the time working. The BB game itself is notably part of his life which he really does not want his parents to know about--this will become a great worry after the BB pellet gets stuck behind his eye.
We've seen many coming-of-age individuals whose parents don't really understand them this semester, and all of these might be represented by fireflies. However, Benji seems to have an especially difficult relationship with his parents, both because of his father's abusiveness and because of his parents' work habits.
You constantly amaze me with your out of the box thinking! If you don't get the Wylde Chicken award next year, clearly Uni has not been paying attention to the star that you are. I really wish that you could expand on the firefly metaphor; are Benji's parents the fireflies, or is Benji a firefly in his parents' view? Personally, I'm leaning towards the latter. Benji's parents are rather neglectful, for the better or the worse is up to the reader. They (as in, Benji's father) only seems to care if something bad/unusual/different happens to their children; such as Reggie with the two C's or that Benji's hair was cut (and not by Benji's father!). Personally, I would be really excited for a sequel (not a full novel, but maybe just a short story) of a conversation between the "current" Benji and his father. How would the dynamic change? And would his father start noticing Benji for everything he is, not just a firefly?
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right that the parents rarely understand the children in these coming of age novels. That's probably because in many cases, being misunderstood by parents is a driving factor for coming of age.
ReplyDeleteThe firefly analogy sure fits Jason's experience: throughout that novel, even though we see what looks like a more close-knit family dynamic than in _Sag_ (they eat dinner together most nights), I keep thinking about how totally oblivious the parents are to what's really going on with Jason every day. This does seem to highlight a limitation of a parent's role in coming-of-age: the most important stuff has to be dealt with alone, and the child needs to figure this stuff out for him/herself.
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