Jason's Coming-Of-Age with Hangman

I think that oftentimes, a big part of coming-of-age is learning how to work with people, how to function in tandem with the rest of the people in your life rather than either being constantly at odds and opposing them or simply going along with whatever other people say or do. It’s about finding that balance of confrontation and collaboration. In The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar, the issue the protagonist was undergoing was being at odds with the rest of society. In Black Swan Green, Jason’s struggle is trying to break away from just going along with what other people want or dictate. I think his struggle and the progress he makes can be depicted well by his “inner persona” Hangman.

By personifying his stammer as Hangman, Jason essentially turned it into this completely arbitrary and cruel thing that Jason has no choice but to go along with. Hangman, to Jason, was a fickle creature that simply existed to make his life horrible and to torment him. It made it feel futile to really consistently try to fight back, since as Jason said, it would supposedly only make Hangman angry. This feeling of powerlessness, and that he truly didn’t have any control over his stammer, turned it into something he just went along with. He never really tried to think of why he would stammer more or less in certain situations, or how he could avoid that, because Hangman was simply something one couldn’t avoid. Instead, he had to do as Hangman said - avoid the letters and words Hangman was keen on, not talk in large gatherings, etc. 

However, by the end of the story, Jason has taken up the advice of Mrs. de Roo, his speech therapist - work with the stammer: “[come] to a working accommodation with it… [respect] it… not [fear] it”. He’s learning how to function with the stammer, rather than just let it dictate his life. In addition, all of Jason’s previous methods of dealing with Hangman, when it wasn’t just doing as Hangman said, were relatively aggressive and directly oppositional methods - just forcing the word out regardless, or trying to trick and confuse Hangman into letting him say a word. Now, he’s thinking of ways to kind of soothe “Hangman” and work with his stammer instead of trying to “kill it”, as Mrs. de Roo once put it, or letting it control his life. I think this change is indicative of the rest of what’s going on in the book - Jason learning to make his own decisions and act on his own behalf rather than doing everything for the sole purpose of keeping his status. You can even see the way Jason manages to do this while still boosting his popularity in the end as him learning how to be himself while still not completely ostracizing or opposing the rest of society (which is actually arguably not a great thing, at least in the context of the teenage-boy society).