So far in the novel, we've watched Benji start to come of age as he's thrown into a setting resembling Lord of the Flies, in which there are no adults to monitor his and the other kids' actions, leaving them to make their own choices. This started a little before then, however, when he extricated himself from his younger brother Reggie.
Just like the bond between Lucile and Ruth at the beginning of Housekeeping, Reggie and Benji grow up so close to each other, they can barely be differentiated. In essence, there's nothing Benji can pinpoint about himself that makes him unique, which is by definition what he needs to develop an individual identity. He has a coming-of-age milestone when he holds hands with Liz on the ice rink and realizes what it's like to experience something on his own, apart from his brother. Quickly, the two seem to work harder than ever to prove that they aren't the same person.
When you're little, it's easy to slip into a pattern of always hanging out with the same person and losing yourself in the other's habits. I didn't have a sibling close enough in age for my experience to be the same, but I have always been super close with my mom. We've always done a lot of things together my whole life, and we can practically communicate telepathically. There's no doubt we have a great relationship, but when I was about twelve or so, I realized that I agreed with almost everything she thought and this perturbed me deeply. I needed to find away to distinguish myself to become my own person. This really hit me when I went to stay with my grandparents in France for the summer and I was without her for the longest I've ever been. I was speaking French, a language she doesn't speak since I learned it from my father, and I was experiencing so much without her. I came back different, having lived something she hadn't, and knowing myself all the better.
There's something about that moment in pre-adolescence when you realize what it's like to be you, on your own, without needing that other person to affirm what you're saying. In childhood, we're essentially mimicking our surroundings, trying to figure out how to act and what to think, and maybe what draws the true barrier between childhood and adulthood, is finding confidence in being yourself and coming up with your own assertions.
I agree with you in that Benji and Reggie will find it beneficial to separate, so they can form their own identities. It seems as if Reggie is trying really hard to form his own opinions, but in the act of diverging from Benji he is mimicking other people (the Sag Harbor kids around him). We haven't heard from Reggie in awhile so far in Sag Harbor, but if his obsession with wearing white shoes and following the hip hop culture is continuing, then I don't think Reggie is truly finding himself. He may not be as twin-like with his brother, but he is still imitating other people's personalities. Benji, on the other hand, who thinks he is lost and confused in a world where all his friends seem to have found themselves, is at an advantage. With no definite culture to form a mold for him, Benji is free to make his own opinions and develop a more unique self-identity.
ReplyDeleteOne of the key lines in the book, for me, is when Benji observes his friends' botched handshake, and he realizes that "everyone is faking it." Everyone's public/social identity is made up of an individuated combination of already-available cultural signifiers, and I don't know that Reggie is any less "original" than Benji in this. Benji is pursuing a less-traveled path for a black teenager in 1985 (if he's used to being the only black kid in the room, he'll feel right at home at a Siouxsie and the Banshees show!), but he acknowledges that his black Chucks are "a gesture to punk." His choices are maybe less bound by anxiety about his racial identity, whereas we see Reggie as venturing out into the "Street" with his puffy white Filas. But they're both just doing what teenagers do, trying to construct a passable self from the resources that are available to them. Ben (narrator) gently mocks his brother for sort of playing up a particular image of "blackness," but he mocks his own efforts in a similar tone.
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