One Jason

Most of the second half of Black Swan Green shows Jason’s path to self-confidence. By degrees, he frees himself from his bullying “friends” and lets his real self come out. The culminating scene of this arc is during “Goose Fair”, when Jason visits the Hall of Mirrors.

For much of the book, Jason is preoccupied with hiding his true thoughts, hobbies, and tastes because he’s terrified of how other boys at his school will perceive him. We described this in class as “self-editing”, which is a totally perfect term for it. However, during the fair he finally comes to the conscious realization that this is enormously unhealthy and unsustainable:

“How about an Outside-You who is your Inside-You too? A One-You? If people like your One-You, great. If they don’t, tough. Trying to win approval for your Outside-You is a drag, Jason. That’s what makes you weak. It’s boring.”

It’s interesting that Jason doesn’t just have an Inside-Me and an Outside Me, though. He has multiple individual “inside” voices, too – Maggot, Unborn Twin, etc. They represent parts of Jason that he thinks are shameful, but not in the same way that he thinks poetry and hats are shameful. Those are things that Jason likes, but feels like he can’t acknowledge to other people; Maggot and Hangman are the things he doesn’t want to see as part of himself, so he gives them other names. After the Hall of Mirrors, when Jason has his “one-me” moment, he stops talking about Maggot’s voice in his head, or Unborn Twin’s. There’s just Jason. Hangman’s still there, but Jason begins to learn to work around his stammer – in a way that doesn’t involve trying to fight it ( treating it as a separate entity) but rather accepting it and giving himself permission not to speak like he thinks other people want him to. Jason’s transition to a “One-You” isn’t just reconciling his inward and outward selves, but also learning to deal with his negative thoughts and impulses in a way that isn’t destructive.