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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The Importance of Esther and Buddy’s final meeting in The Bell Jar

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  One of my favorite scenes in The Bell Jar , by Sylvia Plath, is when Buddy and Esther meet again, once Esther is in remission from her crushing, reality-distorting depressive breakdown. Prior to Esther’s ultimate test of readiness to return to society, it probes the extent of her recovery and character development. Esther has sorted out her feelings for Buddy, feeling happy to only feel a sort of “amiable boredom” (p238) towards him. She does not need him in any way, but she doesn’t hate him either. She has moved on—this is an active improvement in their relationship before their breakdown, when he brought up many conflicting emotions in her, by virtue of her feeling betrayed by him but unable to properly break up with him. This demonstrates that her healing from her illness has actually extended to bettering her life in broader ways, with Dr Nolan helping her feel more comfortable with her own sexuality by getting her access to birth control.    The prior gender ro...
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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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