The Scrap and Margaret Thatcher

One element of Black Swan Green that I found particularly interesting was the evolving political views of Jason, especially Julia’s influence on them. I started tracking this particular thread of the novel, making note of every time Margaret Thatcher is mentioned. The chapter “Rocks” was especially insightful, as Jason started the chapter saying things like, “The Daily Mail’s dead right,” “Mrs. Thatcher’s bloody ace,” and talking about “Loony Lefters” (Mitchell 101). By the end, he’s talking about the reports the Guardian made about the lasting damage of the Falklands War. 

But this is not the first time he questions his beliefs. One moment that stood out to me was when he questions Thatcher’s words in “Bridal Path.” There are two important pieces of context for this moment—the scrap between Grant Burch and Ross Wilcox, and Tom Yew’s nightmare. I will mostly focus on the scrap (or at least try to). One way of looking at the scrap, which was brought up during class, is as a violent act that brought both parties down, as they fall down the embankment. The violence disturbs and scares Jason. He narrates every single move in a play-by-play, but rather than feeling any excitement, “[his] own body flinched under the punches, automatically” (Mitchell 75). Their violence leads them to the edge of the embankment, and they both fall down. Burch ends up with a broken wrist, and despite what could be considered a win for Wilcox, Philip Phelps stays as Burch’s servant. His win doesn’t win him that much.

Later in the day, Jason witnesses Tom Yew waking up from his nightmare about fighting in the navy. Following this moment, three jets fly overhead, and Jason ponders the inevitable future of war, saying that bombs will be dropped on “English cities, towns, and villages like Worcester, Malvern, and Black Swan Green.” Notably, he follows this by listing “Dresden, the Blitz, and Nagasaki”—all sites of bombings during WWII on all sides of the conflict (Mitchell 91). The three English towns are mirrors of the three bombings of WWII—Jason doesn’t see them as people on the other side that deserved it, but as “people like us” whose homes were obliterated (Mitchell 91).

He then follows this up by quoting Thatcher’s words about Cruise Missiles. He recalls her saying, “‘The only way to stop a playground bully … is to show the bully that if he thumps you, then you can jolly well thump him back a lot harder!’” Jason then thinks, “But the threat of being thumped back never stopped Ross Wilcox and Grant Burch scrapping, did it?” (Mitchell 91). Therein lies the connection between the scrap and Jason’s views—he questions Thatcher’s words because their scrap showed that her logic doesn’t always work. Grant Burch was the toughest guy in the third year, but that didn’t stop Wilcox from fighting him—and falling. The risk of being hurt didn’t stop Burch from initiating the scrap in the first place, and he ends up with a broken wrist because of it. (Ultimately, the rivalry between the two ends up with Wilcox losing part of his leg, bringing him down further despite his earlier win, but that’s too off topic for me to pursue further).

This is the same as Jason’s upcoming views in “Rocks” about war, and pyrrhic victories. He doesn’t believe that the violence between Wilcox and Burch was worth it, and it bring them both down. He doesn’t believe that the violence of war is worth it, when any deterrent can be ignored, like how Wilcox and Burch ignore the risks of the scrap. He believes that war hurts innocent people, like Tom Yew—both with his nightmare and his actual death later in the novel—and the people of Dresden and Nagasaki. And, importantly, he doesn’t believe in Margaret Thatcher’s words.