Notice: All future posts are for the Coming of Age Novel

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What Even Was Up With That Firefly? Duality in “Gangsters”

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Note: I have the hardback version, so my page numbers are likely different from yours. Also, disclaimer, I wrote this before I finished the book.  Near the end of the chapter “Gangsters,” Benji is watching fireflies when he is shot with a BB gun. The wound from the BB gun takes precedence in the mind of the reader, but the fireflies are clearly an allegory for… something. Ben notes that the firefly “got its name from its fake time, people time, when in fact most of its business went on when people couldn’t see it,” a description which is pretty evocative of Benji’s internality and lack of action in the next chapter. (p 153) Ben continues on the matter of fireflies, saying that “both parts were true, the bright and the dark,” seemingly giving closure to his previous discussion of “Other Families.” (p 153) Similarly, earlier in the chapter, Ben describes the betrayal of having another life, and how each family cannot be sure whether they, or their counterparts, are the Other Family, ...
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Here lies Sarah [---], whom death took from me too soon

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Sarah is extremely separated from the family at first, though, and this very much remains the case: they don’t even know her last name, and they seemingly don’t know her first name either before Coalhouse mentions it—the boy, who always notices more, “realized he meant the woman in the attic” (p155). Her rejection of Coalhouse coming to see her is the most that she says to the family, over months and months. Even after she grows closer to them, she doesn’t feel like she can tell any of them about her plan to petition the Vice President on behalf of Coalhouse. Even outside of the family, she is noted to have no connections to the Black community downtown, and to be a “transient element” who came here from out of town. This shows Sarah’s continual isolation, and the lack of knowledge on part of the writer is similar to how Coalhouse is treated with uncertainty.  Coalhouse’s courtship of her is sweet—he is originally what prompts her to speak, he visits her and brings gifts to both he...
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Alice, Sarah, and Dana As Three Stills of a Life.

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 Three women who all faced rape or the threat thereof on the plantation. Sarah lives through rape at the hands of Tom Weylin, and recounts her experiences to Dana. All of her children are sold off except for Carrie, who is disabled. Recalling this fact makes her display a “Quiet, almost frightening anger” (p76). Dana views Sarah as an Uncle Tom, or a Mammy, earlier in the book. The young Rufus calls her “Aunt Sarah” (p86) which Dana reflects on as being better than Mammy. Sarah is considerably more perceptive of the more vile aspects of Rufus’s personality than Dana is, at least at first.  Ironically, although Dana accuses Sarah of having been cowed into submission, she in turn is seen as being too white by Alice, who calls her “white [n-word],” in an outburst. Dana’s knowledge and what is perceived as preferential treatment by the whites also leads more generally to people disliking her (such as in Lisa’s case) or, later on, the assumption that Rufus is raping her. Although D...
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