So today in class we discussed the new book of Black Swan Green and it's narrator and main man Jason. In "January Man" Jason informs us of the dynamics of the middle school social hierarchy. When we discussed this in class many students said that they did not have an experience with such a situation. I don't know if this was because they were at a different middle school, or they didn't pay much attention, but let me tell you: middle school hierarchies still exist.
When I was in middle school I was between nerd and socially acceptable. I was no where near being popular, and trust me, the popular people let me know it. I'm not saying because I wasn't popular I didn't enjoy middle school, I actually had a really great group of friends, and I was fine with who I was. But alas, there were the popular girls. It could have been a scene from any stereotypical cafeteria scene.The popular people sat at the table in the corner by the window, the very unpopular people were on the other side of the room, and I sat practically in the middle. You could tell who people were based on their seating arrangement.
This is a lot like how Jason describes the dynamics of his friends. The cool kids only needed a first name, the uncool kids got bad nicknames, and the people in the middle just got their last name. Even Jason's teacher calls him "Taylor" in "Hangman." When Jason plays "British Bulldogs" on the lake he makes it "home" as the fourth runner. Grant says, "Nice work Jacey- boy!"
It'll be interesting to see where Jason's standing goes in the future, and how his relationship with Dean might change simply based on social structure.
I agree that middle school hierarchies still exist but I don't think that we thought about these dynamics as often or in such an eloquent fashion as Jason seems to. I also think that know that we are older, this type of hierarchy, based on popularity, seems to have diminished so I don't think we can relate as well as we used to be able to.
ReplyDeleteYes--the first chapter nicely establishes the insecurity of Jason's position. It literally seems to fluctuate minute by minute: the "Jacey-boy" triumph is immediately offset by the troubling realization that he's being targeted by Ross Wilcox and his crew (troubling because he sees Wilcox seeming to advance in the ranks, and he's suspecting that he might use Jason as a stepping stone. In this scene, it seems, to rise you must put someone else down).
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