Poetry

I thought that the way coming of age is depicted in Sag Harbor is really interesting. There isn't some momentous difference between Benji from the beginning of the book and Benji by the end. I think that this is best seen in the way that Benji ends the summer in the same way that he begins it, by planning ahead. At the beginning of the summer, Benji makes plans about how he's going to reinvent himself over the course of the summer. He is going to go from being lame Benji to being cool Ben. At the end, we can see something similar. He makes plans about how he's going to become cool by going to parties, clubs, and concerts. Despite the similarities between end Benji and beginning Benji, it still is clear that they are different people. But this begs a larger question. At what point do we become someone completely different from who we used to be? Benji points this out by looking back on his 14 year old self and thinking that he was an idiot. He describes himself at the end as...