Samuel's Coming of Age Blogs

  " Great Britain's Catcher in the Rye - and another triumph or one of the present age's most interesting and accomplished novelists"    - Kirkus Reviews (End Cover of Black Swan Green) Throughout Mitchell's  Black Swan Green,  I noticed some similarities between  Black Swan Green  and  The Catcher in the Rye , besides the fact that both stories are centered around  teenage boys trying to make sense of themselves and the world, and the fact that they're both coming of age novels, I noticed that both characters ended up having some other things in common. I primarily noticed this in the way that the lack of acceptance plays a role in both characters, whether it is upon the characters by themselves or not being accepting to others. I also noticed that both characters eventually develop an interest in isolating themselves from the rest of  society, primarily for the reason of not having to interact with other people. (Each one having a sep...

     Throughout Bechdel's Fun Home, Bruce Bechdel, Alison's father, is frequently brought up by his daughter. A couple of times, Alison refers to bruce in a way that pictures him as a sort of Martyr. She's framed Bruce's death as a sort of self-sacrifice, and not just an accident. Though, we have not gained a total confirmation of Alison's claims or hypothesis being true, and never will because Bruce Bechdel is dead. Despite this, we can see multiple reasons in the book for why Alison would think her father's death wasn't just suicide or an accident, but a sort of sacrifice for a cause. But why would he "sacrifice" himself? What was his motive? It could be argued that his suicide was planned. That he took his own life to, in a way, freeze his image as a "great father and husband" and not have the risk of it being stained by the hidden aspects of his life once these were discovered.     We see this happen for the first time in the beginnin...