Adolescence In David Mitchell's Black Swan Green

Adolescence is a time of struggle for most of us. It is the time in our lives when we figure out who we are. In Black Swan Green, Jason Taylor is a thirteen year old boy who is figuring himself out in David Mitchell’s version of a 1980’s Great Britain. Throughout the book, Jason moves through his peer community’s social ranking but spends most of the novel at the bottom of the hierarchical system. At the beginning of the chapter “disco,” Jason breaks Neal Brose’s calculator and grasses on the school bully. After this incident, Jason gains self-confidence and learns not worry about what others think of him. In middle school, I always learned to make a joke out of whatever mockery was being directed toward me. Yet, after a full year of being

Puberty hit me early, but not in the way that it does for everyone. I was fat and sweaty (hence the nickname Piggy), making me an easy target for John Sorenson and his followers. It would have been easy for me to punch one of them, but I usually never resorted violence. So, instead of standing up for myself, I endured it for five long months. Our counselors told us embracing the names would make the bullies stop, but it didn’t. Jason didn’t employ this same method with Maggot, and I can see why; accepting a nickname is self defeating. It was May of sixth grade when I snapped. We had our quotidian after-school kickball game, but today was different because it was sixth grade versus seventh grade. We had called it the last inning, saying that the next run would win when I came up to kick. Of course I was heckled with Piggy and the oinking and squealing, but if anything, that just encouraged me to kick the shit out of the ball. On the second pitch, I smacked the ball into the outfield and rounded second base. With no outs, I elected to stay at third and was accepting a high five from one of my teammates when the rubber kickball slapped me in the back. I turned to see where the bullet came from and saw John five yards away oinking and yelling, “You’re out! Go back to the dugout… or should I say pigpen?” That was it for me. I cocked my elbow back and let my arm guide my knuckles to his left brow, costing him seven stitches. I did

Even though Jason had inflicted physical damage to Neal’s calculator, he got off scotch free with both the school and his parents. In my case, I had to write a letter to John apologizing to him, and my parents grounded me for a month. While Jason was out having the night of his life at the disco, I was crying in my room after my parents had yelled at me for bullying. And I also genuinely felt like a bully after punching him. John didn’t only stop talking to me, but stopped coming to the kickball games. My conscience made me believe that this was my fault. Contrarily, Jason knew it was by his power that these events occurred which made him feel on top of the world. That kickball game caused me to act differently when bullied. I’ve reverted back to my old ways -- I accept it and try to laugh it off, no matter how bad I feel. I acquired another nickname in seventh grade, but instead of discouraging the nickname Penguin, I embraced. To this day, my close friends and girlfriend call me Penguin, even though it once left me crestfallen. Jason and I may both have stood up in the face of bullying, but our lives were changed in different ways as a result. Jason walked out of Mr. Nixon’s office full of confidence from grassing on the bullies at his school, but when I punched my middle school enemy in the eye, I felt nothing but shame. In the book Black Swan Green, Jason grows from being the Maggot that everyone thinks of