Jason Being True to Himself
For most of the book, Jason continually tries to conceal his identity by pretending to be cool, mixing in with the "tribe of hairy barbarians", afraid of what they'll do to him if they find out who he actually is. Some of his secrets include going to the movies with his mom, his stammer, and probably most importantly, his poetry. While hiding his real self may work temporarily, his secrets eventually spill out and cause massive trouble for him (as in the case with the stammer). Weirdly, when Jason is true to himself and sticks up for himself, fighting off bullies and embracing his faults, he gains respect for his actions and falls on the social ladder how he should. For example, Holly likes how he sticks up for himself and from this, he gets his first kiss.
Jason's identity is generally split between two people: his poet-self Elliot Bolivar and the popularity seeking Jason Taylor. Unfortunately, both these identities can't really exist simultaneously without taking an emotional and mental toll on Jason. This is shown with Eva Crommelynck who wishes that Jason stop his double life and pursue poetry full time. She implies that without finding your one identity and being true to yourself, you can never engage with your passions fully. In this way, Jason will never reach the peak of his poetry while his other identity still exists. Eva expresses this sentiment with her line: "True poetry is truth. Truth is not popular, so poetry also is not." If Jason isn't willing to face his own truth, he won't be able to write real poetry and reach his full potential. What Jason also doesn't seem to realize is that the truth is quite attractive and respectable in his time. Even if he is embarrassed and ashamed of who he is, he'll at least gain some respect for coming out with it (as in the case with Holly Devlin). Counter-intuitively, being true to yourself also means that you might have to pretend to be confident when embracing your identity. By being confident, he makes it seem as if his identity is something to be proud of and thus, others will look at it slightly less weirdly. While he might still get bullied, at least he has those moments where he seems desirable and is confident of himself.
Eva also advises him to stop using flamboyant and beautiful words in his poetry to make his words seem better than they are. There's a real difference between meaning and beauty and Eva tries to tell him this in "Solarium". His tendency to go for style is shown right there in his fake name: Elliot Bolivar. While the name hides his true identity, it also serves to make him seem a lot more fancy than he is. The distinction that Eva makes about art here can also be applied to life. Rather than trying to go for the appearance and style, Jason needs to actually have meaning in his identity. Only then does he know if his identity aligns with his passions (which is not true for the popularity seeking part of himself).
Rather than accepting his real passions, he adapts to environment and tries to become a person that he thinks most people will think is cool. The growth in maturity and coming-of age part of the novel is when he actually lets go of his need to adapt and stops copying others to be cool. In this way, he gains some originality in terms of his identity.
It really is ironic that Jason's attempts to hide his passion for poetry and his stammer only leads to him being thrown down the social rankings more. As you mention, confidence alone goes a long way in terms of how someone is perceived. Initially, Jason makes himself an easy target for bullies because he's insecure, and bullies love preying upon people's insecurities. But by standing up for himself and having more confidence, he becomes much more respected by his classmates. On the other hand, characters that show insecurity at the end of the book drop down the social ladder. For example, Ross turns out to be insecure about his home life, and when he loses his wallet, he ends up displaying this insecurity for all to see by insulting his girlfriend and stealing the bike. Because of that, he ends up looking less respectable and loses his girlfriend.
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting how for pretty much all of the book Jason only fixates on trying to fit in and seem "cool", and only when he stops caring about that so much does anything actually change for the better in his life. It seems like he's constantly reminded that he should stop trying to hide his real identity, mostly by Eva, but I think there are some other characters that hint at it, and he pretty much just ignores all of it until the end.
ReplyDeleteI agree a lot with this post, I think Jason trying to fit in as one of the popular kids hurt him the most, including in terms of his popularity. I think this is one of the reasons that Dean is picked on less than Jason, despite the fact that they are both similarly nerdy and Jason attempts to be popular more than Dean.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Jason's coming-of-age narrative is centered around him learning to embrace his own identity. And it's interesting that even in poetry, one of the only ways he is able to express his true self, he writes under a pseudonym not only to conceal his identity but also because he thinks it's more poetic than the name Jason Taylor. Even his "real" self has to be edited in some way. I enjoyed reading your post!
ReplyDeleteI think you set up your argument very well, and I agree with you. Jason only really comes of age when he stop trying to make himself into the version he thinks everyone will like and starts just doing what he wants to do with his life.
ReplyDeleteHuh. Sounds a lot like Jason should stop being a phony moron. Strongly agree with that sentiment! I guess another related part of not acting like a phony would be the part where Jason actually decides to rat on Neal Brose's extortion ring and break his calculator. Counterintuitively, doing something that would've invited direct retaliation from Neal (which was a deterrent for him), actually makes his standing better.
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