Self-Acceptance in Black Swan Green
The town of Black Swan Green has a brutal social life for young boys (and probably girls, too). There's a strict hierarchy among the boys, with those at the top aggressively bullying those below them. Jason starts out somewhere in the middle, mostly trying to stay out of trouble. He desperately wants to be like the boys at the top, but deep down, he knows he’s different. He has a nervous stammer and secretly writes poetry, both things that would be seen as “gay” by those around him. Throughout the book, the bullying toward Jason grows progressively worse, and by the end, he learns that survival depends on asserting his true self, even at the cost of rejection. Jason's growth comes through his experiences with bullying, his friendship with Moran, his shifting view of his dad, and what he learns from the Romani population. At the beginning of the book, Jason believes that survival means hiding his true self and staying on the sidelines. He keeps his head down, avoiding too much a...