Conflict in Sag Harbor
One aspect of Sag Harbor that I thought was really interesting was the depiction of conflict in boys. We see this mainly it two ways, one is through the constant lighthearted ‘roasting’ that happens between friends, and the other is through the instilling of violence through his father’s teachings. When we discussed these depictions in class, we talked about how the culture at the time somewhat instilled violene or conflict into kids. Physical fights, parents beating their kids, and general conflict throughout kids’ lives were very common. To a certain degree, Sag Harbor shows how Benji’s parenting tactics (hitting Benji to teach fighting back), instigate a deeper cycle of violence in Benji’s life. This gives Benji the confidence to fight back to his bullies physically, and generally teaches him to be more strong in the face of conflict. Furthermore, the constant conflict between their friend group of roasting each other and trying to come up with harmful insults seems somewhat se