Elena vs Julia: The Archetype of an Older Sister
Apparently, Black Swan Green and Sag Harbor are essentially sister stories, meaning they have a very similar outline in the coming of age world. Past the characters themselves, one of the clearest comparisons I found was the similarities between Elena and Julia from Black Swan Green, as older sisters -- which I kind of loved as an older sister. While I think Elena is much less influential on Benji’s development and is among the family that has become distant, she still cares about him enough to want him to be out of the family dynamic–which is important to the main character’s development. They’re a few years older than the narrator and demonstrate that they’ve already been down a path the main character will go down in a couple years, acting as role models for the later phase of growing up that older characters like Esther and Holden don’t have. They both protect the younger brother, Julia by defending him from Hugo and Elena telling him to “Work hard and get into a good school-- that...