Jason's Narration
The first week of classes, we discussed what coming-of-age
meant. Was it a long drawn-out series of events, or one big moment in a person’s
life that forever changes them? Was it a loss of innocence or the gaining of
maturity? Coming-of-age stories can fit many different scenarios and span
genres. So where does Jason’s story fit in to all of this?
Much of Jason’s story revolves around the acceptance of himself
intersected with the realization of the toxicity of the (masculine) social
structures that surround him. To give us even more insight into his story, Jason
narrates the entire book for us. The events seem so dramatized, which at first
may seem like a writing fault, but show us exactly how Jason is feeling as a middle
school boy. In class people suggested that the way the bullying was described
was unrealistic or that some parts of the story seemed more magical than true
to life. When I was first reading it, these mystical parts made it less coming-of-age
to me. I wasn’t able to relate to a witch magically healing someone’s ankle, or
my bully getting his leg ripped off in a motorcycle crash. But once we started
discussing a bit more, I think it’s these fantastical elements that make the
story more relatable. It’s important to remember that everything is being
narrated by a young boy. The experience he’s reflecting on would seem more
dramatic to him than a reader. I do the same thing when I’m telling stories
about my life.
I think this dramatic narration is one thing that makes his
story so compelling. Readers are able to not only relate to the events in his
life but also the way he’s experiencing them. I know my younger self would blow
life events way out of proportion, and seeing Jason do the same was surprisingly
relatable. We saw similar narration in The Bell Jar, another example of
a story where the narration of the character had a potent effect on the reader.
I really like the way you explained how coming of age is dramatized in Jason's point of view just to show the extent to which he really feels while narrating the novel for us, it brings up a point that we are trying to see things from his point of view in the most in depth way possible.
ReplyDeleteI think you raise a lot of really great points! I definitely dramatize events that happen to me because it's centered around my own interpretation and honestly it's more fun to tell stories in this way. Remembering the fact that Jason is 13 in this book, it really does make sense. Like you said, it makes the book surprisingly relatable because I would do the exact same thing. I did notice though, that Jason seems to dramatize events less as the book goes on. As he comes of age and matures, he seems to narrate the story in a more real way.
ReplyDeleteI think you explained Jason's narration very well. I didn't really think about it as the natural dramatization of his own events as a middle schooler, and that is a very good point. When telling stories its natural to want to make them sound more extreme so that it will be more impressive and that seems to somehow make it more real. Its not just events of a young boy its the events through the eyes of a young boy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. I definitely dramatize events when I'm telling a story, and I know that when I was younger, many things felt like the end of the world even though they were not. We have to remember that Jason is a young kid who still has relatively little experience in the world, so we can't judge these big moments in his life as not important because they were very important to him. I found it interesting though that at the end of the book, he finds out that this mystical cabin in the woods is really not as isolated as he thought. When he first went to the woods, he experienced everything in an almost fairy tale-like state where nothing seemed real and where there was a mystical old lady figure. However, when he went back, he discovered that the mystical old lady was really just a normal old lady with memory issues. Similarly, he discovered that this Hansel and Gretel like house in the woods was actually just a normal house with several neighboring houses. This literally represents him growing up because he has lost the childish imaginations that he saw during the first January.
ReplyDeleteThis sense of immediacy--of Jason as narrator actually reacting to these events *as he writes* (the enthusiasm and excitement and terror is all "real" and "present")--definitely distinguishes this narrative from Whitehead's in _Sag Harbor_. Jason *feels like* an actual 13-year-old, and therefore everything in his life seems very "dramatized," as you put it. There's almost the opposite effect in _Sag Harbor_, as all "drama" is drained away by the older narrator ("Ben") and his critical distance from the time of life he depicts in the novel. Jason implies that adults tend to "forget what it's like" to be his age, while Ben is more "Who IS this kid?" baffled by his own younger self and the stuff he cared about.
ReplyDeleteYou make a super compelling point and I totally agree! The more “magical” elements of the narrative, especially at the end of the first chapter or in the end of “Bridle Path” maybe as well (with the woman’s “wail”), made me a little confused at first, but I really enjoyed reading them. I thought it added a very interesting layer to Jason’s narration and story that we probably wouldn’t have been able to see with an older narrator, at least in this genre. Sometimes throughout the novel, it was hard to remember that Jason and his friends are still pretty young. But I think that, as you say, these more mystical elements and the pop culture references he adds in too (such as when he pretends he’s on the Millennium Falcon at the beginning), reminds us of this youthful side of the story when the other underlying themes can be pretty complex and heavier. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI agree, the more fantastical elements, as well as the way he tended to dramatize and exaggerate certain things, really came off as the tone and words of a child to me. I think the way Mitchell handled the first two? chapters, where the mystical element was arguably the most prominent, as well as the chapter Bridle Path, was really interesting and a good stylistic/narrative choice. It drove home that Jason was a child with a very active imagination (as expected, he's pretty into fantasy stuff it seems), and to me, it also highlighted his growing maturity and coming-of-age arc throughout the book. I could see him starting to drift a bit away from that more childish outlook and get more grounded in reality - another blog post talked some about this, about how Jason would exaggerate consequences and make them seem bigger and more dramatic than they might actually be, and that he "came-of-age" by facing those fears and realizing it wasn't as big and scary as he made it out to be in his head.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was reading the scene with Jason in the forest, I also felt like it was a bit out of place. Looking back now, it makes sense-- Jason's a 13-year-old boy who likes Lord of the Rings, of course he might exaggerate a few parts of the story. Even if we feel that the bullying Jason described was overly dramatized, from his perspective, he probably really did believe his "eyes would be gouged out" or whatever. The way he talks about bullying reveals a lot about how anxious he was when it came to social interactions. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI really liked your post! I think that his dramatic and intimate narration style helped the reader know who Jason really was and how he felt. Jason is so observant which made his narration so good. He also was extremely candid which gave us important context. I think it's interesting how much his narration style impacted the story.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right about the dramatics presented in this story. While we may not be able to fully relate to these fully blown-out-of-proportion events, I think it is good to keep in mind the age of the narrator. I think that my younger self would probably see events in a similar way. I think when you get older, there are more things for you to think about, so simple events look smaller in your mind's eye.
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