"Benji 'n' Reggie, Benji 'n' Reggie," people say in a “singsong way” (Whitehead 2). For much of their lives, the Sag Harbor gang thought of Benji and Reggie Cooper as not two people, but rather “the twins” (even separated by ten months). They’re referred to together, and treated as two parts of one item. I think that part of Sag Harbor tells the story of how Benji decides to differentiate himself and become independent.
Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor opens with a summer: the kind that feels infinite while in youth, yet once you blink it’s over. By the summer the novel takes place, puberty has struck both of the siblings, sending Benji "up and airborne, tall and skinny, a knock-kneed little reed, while Reggie, always chubby in the cheeks and arms, bulged out into something round and pinch-able."(Whitehead 4) My brother and I, also nine months apart, looked very similar for quite a while. And similarly, as we got older, those physical similarities turned to differences, which came along with different friends, personalities, and lives.
Once Benji takes his job at Jonni Waffle, he in a sense strikes a physical line between him and Reggie at Burger King and literally puts a physical distance between them. Reggie goes one direction that summer and Benji chooses to go another, literally meaning less time spent together. He didn’t announce this intention, yet that decision ultimately caused the two siblings to grow a little more apart.
However, I think it's most notable when Benji announces he wants to go by "Ben." To me, this doesn’t just symbolize him embracing a new identity, but also disassociating with his old identity that associated him with Reggie. "stuck there next to my brother in that 'Benji 'n' Reggie' construction — it was demeaning." (Whitehead 25)
Hello Jason,
ReplyDeleteNice job noticing how Benji strikes a physical line between him and Reggie, how the two siblings grew a little more apart, and how Benji is disassociating with his old identity that associated him with Reggie. I think Benji just does not want to be in Reggie's shadow anymore and carve his own identity kind of like how you think Benji is disassociating with his old identity that associated him with Reggie.
Hi Jason, great blog you got there and congrats on your graduation. Benji escaping his identity of Reggies brother is something that I didn't think about at all. However, now that you bring it up, I can definitely see why Benji would want to do so. I've heard many stories of twins being annoyed from always being associated with each other and this is a pretty similar case.
ReplyDeleteHi! I think it's really interesting to say that Benji forging a new identity as Ben is inherently leaving his "Benji n Reggie" identity behind. I agree, I think the fact that they were already physically growing different, and personality-wise changing, pushed them apart. But, I think it pushed them apart as twins, not as brothers. Reggie was still Benji's brother when Benji got shot, they still cared for each other, they just became different.
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ReplyDeleteHi Jason, this was a very interesting blog post! I like how were you able to tie back Benji and Reggie's separation and development of different identities back to your own experiences growing apart with your brother. I thought another interesting aspect of your blog was that you attributed Benji's want to be referred to as "Ben" to his hope to disassociate himself from Reggie - I thought it was because he wanted to appear cool and tough to get girls.
ReplyDeleteHi Jason! Amazing blog post. I agree with your idea that Benji is not necessarily leaving Reggie but rather forming his new identity. I would like to say that your introduction was also very captivating! Overall, fantastic blog post!
ReplyDeleteHello Jason. I think the Benji and Reggie divide is one of the best examples of things actually changing over the course of Sag Harbor. A big theme of the book is that this summer was just one in a long line of future experiences, but Benji and Reggie choosing to spend less time together is a sign that even within the perpetuating cycle of Sag Harbor, the characters are developing and things won't be exactly the same each time around. Great post!
ReplyDeleteThis is a good point: "Benji-n-Reggie" has that "singsong" quality, so demarcating himself as "Ben" would indeed be an effort to thwart that tendency to see him as one half of a pair: no one is going to hail "Ben-n-Reggie," or maybe "Ben and Reginald." We never learn whether Reggie wants to start going by a different name soon or not. (I might suggest that "Reggie" is a somewhat cooler name in NY circa 1985, because of the lingering shadow of the Yankees player Reggie Jackson, who was HUGE in that area by the end of the 70s. "Benji" for me evokes the kids' movie about the dog with this name--not quite as badass a nickname as Mr. October himself.)
ReplyDeleteI agree that Sag Harbor tells the story of a time when Benji and Reggie are growing more different in terms of both physical and character qualities. I think this is an example of how the coming-of-age process affects different people in different ways. While Benji and Reggie started out indistinguishable, their surroundings and circumstances are shaping them into different people.
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