For me as a reader, the chapter "Maggot" is the point when Black Swan Green "gets real." I've read plenty of books about the whims and whiles of uncool kids but "Maggot" gives BSG some deep roots into the kind of dark suffering and challenges endured by Holden and Esther.
On a personal level, I can relate to Jason for a number of years in my past, though I have never had it as intense (at least as recorded in my memory, years after the fact).
Even 20-30 years after the events of BSG (set in 1982) and an Atlantic Ocean away, harassment I have experienced generally falls along these lines:
- Being devalued in action and words for not upholding a (sub)standard of masculinity (including the haphazard misapplication of words like "gay", much as Jason experiences). In particular, this can be further broken down:
- not having an interest in sports
- valuing honor, decency, respect, and good behavior
- having a calm, reserved demeanor—tending to act meek rather than brutish
- taking an interest in schoolwork, science, etc.
- general lack of conformity (like not having blue as a favorite color)
- Being fat and lacking athletic ability.
- Not giving a damn to fit in with the aforementioned athletic, self-appointed "cool" group.
Story time! I was fairly derided from when I started Uni as a subfreshman until an incident freshman year in our English class. Without going into detail, the following day I asked to speak in front of the class and denounced what had occurred. After that exact point, some sort of knowledge rippled out that, pardon the phrasing (I can't think of anything better), I "was not to be messed with," at least that harassment was no longer intended for me myself to hear, see, and feel. Or, depending on the person, I may have been regarded genuinely better. (I did get some apologies.) Yet, even though I was no longer a target, I don't think the root problem went away, even to the present day. I still see the same attitudes applied to all manner of people and ideas, except I am not in the crosshairs.
Not to make this a gripe session... All I can say is that I am looking forward to participating in the Day of Silence, technically today as the clock ticks.
I think that our small class size at Uni makes bullying very visible and makes bullies the subject of a lot of hatred behind their backs. However, it's funny that even though bullying is visible, it isn't stopped. There are a lot of bystanders at Uni because only a small minority are bullied so others just try to go unnoticed.
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