Ben vs. Benji
Ben vs. Benji
Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor follows Benji’s experience in Sag Harbor during the summer while also getting some narration from his older self, Ben. In the book, we get narration from two different people, Ben and Benji. Even though they are technically the same person, I think that Ben is Benji after he has come of age.
When we are first introduced to Benji, we are told that he is sort of quiet and likes to fit in. Throughout the book, he is like this in the way that he wants to fit into his friend group and seem cool, so he doesn’t really share his ideas. For example, he didn’t speak up when he didn’t want to play with guns. He doesn’t want his friends to think that he’s “pussy” (Whitehead 153). This shows that at this point in the book, he hasn’t really come of age yet because he hasn’t really transitioned into a new person. He is still this kid who wants to seem cool to his friends.
Ben definitely is different from Benji. Throughout the book, we hear from Ben narrating on Benji’s experience in Sag Harbor, but we only get a real idea of how he has changed at the end of the book. Ben reflects on his time in Sag Harbor during the summer and says, "I was definitely more together than I was at the start of the summer. It didn’t seem like that much time had passed, but I had to be a bit smarter. Just a little. Look at the way I was last Labor Day. An idiot! Fifteen looks at fourteen and says, That guy was an idiot. And fifteen looks at eight and says, That guy knew so little. Why can't fifteen and three-quarters look back at fifteen and a half and say, That guy didn't know anything. Because it was true." (Whitehead 328). This quote shows that even Ben agrees that he has changed from who he used to be at the start of the summer. He has grown and come of age into a new and more mature person. I also think that him keeping the BB bullet in his head sort of shows how he wants to sort of learn from the mistakes that Benji has made, and he wants to learn and grow from them. It shows him as a new person. I think that it also reminds Ben of the things that Benji did before and how he doesn’t want to do those things anymore. The BB bullet is a representation of how Ben has come of age.
Works Cited:
Whitehead, Colson. Sag Harbor. Doubleday, 2009.
If we take "Ben" to be the fully transformed, mature version of the Benji we encounter in the novel, it makes sense that he wouldn't be able to fully effect this transformation by the end of a single summer. His "plan" is to be known as "Ben" by summer's end, and that still isn't quite happening (with the one exception of Melanie, who DOES call him "Ben"). It's going to take a few more years, and it's implied that he's going to have to follow Elena's plan--get into a good school, find your tribe, and don't look back. It will be easy to get his college friends to call him "Ben"--he won't have the legacy of being Benji to them.
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