What does it mean to come of age in Black Swan Green?

    Black Swan Green by David Mitchell is a coming of age novel. So if Jason Taylor is a child at the beginning of the book, and by the end of the book Jason Taylor has come of age; then what does it mean to come of age in Black Swan Green? I believe that coming of age involves disappointment and disillusionment.

    Throughout the book Jason Taylor finds that things aren't as cracked up as they're supposed to be. He sees his dad, Micheal Taylor, being a massive suck-up to his boss, Craig Salt. Craig Salt elbows Jason in the face, and falsely asserts that the ammonite is not an ammonite, but a trilobite. Dad, being the spineless yes-man he suddenly transformed to, scolds Jason for something that was not his fault and changed his mind on what the fossil is, which he knew, in order to agree with Craig Salt (Mitchell 182-184). You can tell that Jason will never look at his father the same way ever again. During the incident Jason notices that, "The Dad out here and the Dad in the fossil shop just weren't the same person." (Mitchell, 183). Jason ends the encounter with this feeling of betrayal and disappointment, "Dad and I watched Craig Salt jog down the promenade. 'What Say' - Dad's jolliness was forced and feeble - 'we get ourselves that bacon sandwich?' But I couldn't speak to Dad. 'Hungry?' Dad put his hand on my shoulder. 'Jason?' I nearly biffed his hand away and flung my shitty 'trilobite' into the shitty sea. Nearly." (Mitchell, 184). The disillusionment is palpable in the aftermath of witnessing this facade that his Dad has to put up. But that's not all the disillusionment Jason encounters during the book, while everyone, including Jason, was excited about the War in the Falklands, Tom Yew died, and that along with Julia's comments about the war really put a damper jingoistic fervor Jason was feeling (Mitchell, 97-118).

    But I'm not done yet, there are still more examples of disappointment and disillusionment in the book. A few more of them are when Eva van Outryve de Crommelnycky is extradited, when he learns that being a spook means leaving Dean Moran behind and the spooks still aren't going to accept Jason as one of them, cousin Hugo playing buddy to Jason only to laugh at him and also has Jason kinda betraying his true self to try to fit it (Mitchell;164-166, 139-141, 55-66). Jason summarizes part of the feeling near the end of Rocks on page 118, "Me, I want to bloody kick this moronic bloody world in the bloody teeth over and over till it bloody understands that not hurting people is ten bloody thousand times more important than being right." (Mitchell). I feel that this moment demonstrates Jason's disappointment and disillusionment and frustration not just over his own misfortunes, but with life. After all, Jason didn't know Tom Yew that well, nor was it the koi in the rockery he wanted that was snatched by a heron. Jason is just done, with all the sorrow, misery, and cruel jokes the world has in store for everyone. Jason is starting to see that the world and many of the things he once thought weren't so great as he used to think.

     All of this causes Jason to change his outlook on life and the world as a whole. It's part of what causes him to make the statement at the very end of the book, "The world is a very strict headmaster who works on your faults. I don't mean in a mystical or a Jesus way. More how you'll keep tripping over a hidden step, over and over, till you finally understand: Watch out for that step! Everything that's wrong with us, if we're too selfish or too Yessir, Nossir, Three bags full sir or too anything, that's a hidden step. Either you suffer the consequences of not noticing your fault forever or, one day, you do notice it, and fix it. Joke is, once you get it in your brain about that hidden step and think, Hey, life isn't such a shithouse after all again, then BUMP! Down you go, a whole new flight of hidden steps. There are always more." (Mitchel, 291). This part here is what I think encapsulates the coming of age.

Comments

  1. Katie RasmussenApril 20, 2026 at 7:00 PM

    Hi David!
    This is a great post. It's interesting that in Black Swan Green, Jason needs to be disillusioned to come of age, but that in The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar, Holden and Esther sufffer because they are too disillusioned and it drags them into despair. Outside of what you've already listed, we see Jason's disillusionment give way to critical thinking, in terms of Margaret Thatcher, music taste, and general bigotry (anti-Romani meeting in Chapter 10).
    I think more generally there tends to be a kind of "disillusionment with/dismantling the system" bent in the coming of age novels we have read; Jason and Alison have "relatively" "happier" coming of age arcs once Alison goes to school but before her Dad dies because they actually confront their systems (bullying/ homophobia) and do something to change and become their true selves, whereas Holden and Esther are overwhelmed.

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  2. MitchellApril 24, 2026 at 11:52 AM

    When I read the first paragraph of this post, positing that Jason "has come of age" by the end of the book (at the tender age of fourteen!), I immediately thought of the passage you cite from the second "January Man" chapter, when Jason talks about the unfinished business of his progress up the "stairs." It's always dicey in these books to declare with too much confidence that the c-o-a process is "complete," and all of these books have a form of indeterminate ending. But I really like the way you formulate the core nature of Jason's coming-of-age here--akin to the classic "loss of innocence" motif, we get a series of disillusionments, all of which cumulatively make Jason more aware, more conscious of himself and his place in the world, and more "wise" as to the ways of the world. His scope has expanded so much by the second "January Man," and this doesn't necessarily mean that his growth is "finished"--just that he is better equipped, when he's the "new kid" at his new Cheltenham school, to navigate those bumpy steps. He is less naive, under fewer illusions, more realistic in his outlook. (This is all an interesting contrast to _Catcher_, where Holden's disillusionment--which seems to have taken place around the time he was Jason's age--is almost a deal-breaker for him.)

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