Pyrrhic Victories in Black Swan Green
A pyrrhic victory is generally understood as a victory that required so much sacrifice that it is equivalent to a defeat. Jason is first introduced to the idea of a pyrrhic victory when Julia slyly asks mentions it to their dad. Throughout the chapter we see several arguments take place between Michael and Helena. For example, after Helena secretly got koi fish for the water feature, a heron comes and grabs one. As Jason aptly put it "dad isn't laughing ... [but] he's won" (Mitchell 119). Michael thinks the event granted himself some sort of justice and victory over Helena, but the whole fiasco with the water feature and the emotional distress it all caused Helena was, in the long run, not worth it.
In that chapter, David Mitchell draws the comparison between Michael Taylor's arguments with Helena and the Falklands war as both pyrrhic victories. Jason and the town of Black Swan Green recognizes the victory over Argentina, but also has to live with losing a town legend, and as a result they realize all the deaths were not worth it. Even though these two events were the only clearly outlined pyrrhic victories, there are many other parts of the book that can be considered "pyrrhic victories".
The main thing that comes to mind is the way Jason climbs his way up the social scene of Black Swan Green. Because of his deep embarrassment of his stutter, Jason censors himself. Also, Jason engaged in risky behavior in order to gain attention. He led the "cherry knocking" prank with Mr. Blake, just to get recognized by some popular kids and Dawn Madden. Eventually his stressful actions landed him a trial with the Spooks. Even though his social standings improved, he had to perform morally impure actions and even got his best friend Dean Moran hurt.
Hi Kabir, what a fantastic blog you got there. Pyrrhic victories was something that I remember pretty distinctly while reading because it was one of the quiz questions and it was pretty interesting to me. I like how you were able to see that David Mitchell was trying to draw the comparison between two pyrrhic victories and how they depict a bigger message overall. Great Blog!
ReplyDeleteI agree that Jason's ordeal in "Spooks"--winning the "test" but also "failing" by doing the right thing with Dean--is a great example of a pyrrhic victory, although in this case I think we'd ultimately agree that it's also a real moral victory for Jason (it just leads to some immediate discomfort and upheaval). The important thing with Julia introducing this concept to Jason is that he now understands that winning is not necessarily important, and that lots of wins look like losses, while some losses initially look like wins. This has relevance to his disillusionment at the "victory" in the Falklands, but maybe even more importantly to the conflict at home. He learns he isn't necessarily on a "side"--his mother and father both win and lose throughout this chapter to the extent that it's hard to keep track of all the apparent victories that are undermined, but I always think of Jason's frustrated exclamation at the end of the chapter. He no longer values victory or domination of the enemy--he is frustrated at the whole stupid game, at home and abroad, and he takes the side of people just being nice instead of always trying to defeat each other. He sounds rather immature in this "tantrum" passage, but at the same time, I'd say he also seems more wise and circumspect than the adults in his life.
ReplyDeleteHello Kabir,
ReplyDeleteGreat post about one of the central themes of Black Swan Green! I had basically forgotten about the whole Pyrric victory thing after reading about it in "Rocks," but your explanation made a lot of sense. Throughout the entire book, Jason keeps making choices that he believes will increase his social standing. But these choices usually involve him hurting others or ignoring the parts of himself that make him special. I think that by the end of the book, Jason begins to see past this delusion. He talks about "not caring" about others' expectations of him, and believes that he can prevent his stammer that way. But more generally, it seems as though he recognizes that by not caring too much, he can leave the cycle of Pyrrhic victories he got himself into earlier in the book and instead focus on achieving true success.
I think pyrrhic victories are really central to Black Swan Green and you nailed it with this blog post. You were able to find 2 moments of pyrrhic victories and show a greater theme from them overall.
ReplyDeleteHey Kabir, I don't think I realized how many pyrrhic victories there really are in BSG until I read your post. I think it really ties into how Jason needs to like find his own self rather than climbing a different social structure, like the situation with the spooks or the public speaking situation, in order to not lose more of himself. It really ties back into the main core of the book, and I think you did a great job highlighting that. Great post!
ReplyDeleteHey Kabir Thiccodira, what a fantastic blog you made. Unlike a certain person who pretended to be interested about Pyrrhic victories because it was one of the quiz questions, I actually found it interesting how you were able to translate to Jason's real life insecurities given that when he choose to bad things in order to get the people around him to respect him, but reflecting if it was really worth the cost of him losing a "real" friend like Dean Moran. Great job Thun!
ReplyDeleteHey Kabir, I think that there are plenty of pyrrhiv victories explored in BSG, and this blog does a great job summerizing and explaing the importance of these instances. I believe even the end of the novel could be described as a pyrrhic victory, I mean... sure he finally has been given justice for his bullying, but only after enduring so much bullshit. I think overall the novel really had me thinking about this idea of pyrrhic victories, and how much that comes up in life, so I really appreciate this blog exploring it. Great job!
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