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          By the end of Black Swan Green , we see that Jason has transformed into a completely different person compared to how he was at the beginning of the book, when he was about a year younger. His transition into a braver and less self conscious teenager can be attributed to a variety of experiences he underwent, but the one that stood out the most to me was his interactions with the Gypsies. When Jason is among the gypsies, he sees their cool and calm mannerisms and realizes the absurdities of his own everyday challenges with bullying. As a result of this, Jason ends up adopting some of their mannerisms in order to defend himself against his bullies, which ultimately ends in Jason being freed from them and gaining more self confidence.      When Jason first met the gypsies in the forest, he notes how the gypsy kids were “wilder and way harder” than the kids at his school, including Ross Wilcox. He then goes on to elaborate that things ...

  Helen is a woman of many talents, and yet we are introduced to her in a state far beyond her prime. In every panel we see of her, we can see the visible signs of her aging state, such as her eyebags and sad eyes. Yet it seems strange that a woman of such potential would fall to such a position, essentially becoming a housewife satisfying her disloyal husband, and not take action to improve her life. This lifestyle of submission reminded me of what Esther in The Bell Jar dreaded as a potential future for herself, living as a housewife for Buddy Willard. I thus decided to look deeper into how Helen, who much like Esther was very skilled at her craft, ended up in this position, as I wanted to see if Esther was following a similar path as her. I find the narration of Helen’s past in Chapter 3 to be a strong example of how Helen changed as a result of her following the path Esther wishes to avoid, which is that of a housewife. On page 69 (at least on my copy), we can see Helen lookin...

Why Esther Hates Joan When first reading about Joan, many of us likely noticed the many similarities between her and Esther: they both are highly educated young women among elites who ended up “going crazy” as a result of the world around them, and they both attempted suicide to relieve them from their issues with the world, to name a few. But surprisingly, we see that Esther dislikes being in Joan’s company and fails to connect to her, even though the two are quite similar. Esther claims that she dislikes Joan for being the “being double of [her] old best self,” though I personally find this to be only part of her dislike towards her (231). Esther’s uneasiness around Joan, which in part led to her dislike towards her, started from when Joan explained how she ended up in the asylum. After hearing the story, Esther asks if Joan is “all right now” (225). We haven’t seen Esther ever be concerned in the health of others, and this all comes after Joan explains that Esther inspired her attem...

When we are first introduced to Ackley, Holden frames him as a complete slob who he despises, faulting him for the most minor details. This comes during a time in the book where we have not met anyone who Holden directly claims to like, so we are expected to consider Ackley as just another inferior person Holden has to deal with, but instead Ackley is made out to seem even worse than the rest of the people Holden knows: he is constantly ridiculed for his lousy hygiene, described as having a “terrible personality,” and is generally described as annoying and intrusive. Holden, as a result of this all, claims to not be “too crazy about [Ackley],” and seems to be genuine in saying so (19). We end up not helping but to dislike Ackley too, as Holden is constantly making us laugh at or despise him, such as how Ackley was “ exactly the kind of guy that wouldn’t get out of your light when you asked him to,” which is ironic as we see Holden do the same exact thing with Stradlater just a few mome...