Jason Taylor. Is he Frodo or is he Alice?

Jason Taylor in "Black Swan Green" is a dynamic character who trapezes through his year with detailed descriptions, deep thoughts, and growing knowledge of who he is as a person. He is a character crafted by David Mitchell for us to learn about from the pages of his book. However much of an individual Jason may seem to be to us, I propose that Jason is a mashup of multiple characters Mitchell has encountered through his adventures as a reader. After all, every good novel is based off of the ideas of another. The chapter titled "Bridle Path" in "Black Swan Green" has strong connection with both "The Lord of the Rings" and "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

"Bridal Path" represents a Hero's Journey arch, similar to that of "The Lord of the Rings." Jason fills the roll of Frodo Baggins, adventuring in the unknown with a mysterious end goal in the wilderness, friends made along the way, and difficult obstacles. The tunnel and Sauron's mountain are both similar end goals. In addition, each character, Jason and Frodo, have a friend who helps them during their journey. Jason has Dean Moran and Frodo has Samwise Gamgee. Both Dean and Sam confide in their friend, allowing each story to develop further. For example, Sam tells Frodo to not trust Gollum and his desire for the ring, whereas Dean tells Jason about his father's drinking problem, saying "'it's like this whiny shitty nasty weepy man who isn't my dad takes my dad over for however long the bender lasts'" (Mitchell 80). Both main character also has to go through many obstacles on their journey. The most similar obstacle for both is when they are tempted by something. In "The Lord of the Rings" Frodo is constantly tempted by the ring, and in "Black Swan Green" Jason is tempted by Dawn Madden and her Danish pastry.

Interestingly, David Mitchell didn't only relate "Bridal Path" to one story, but a multitude. Another one that connections can be drawn to is "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," which also follows the Hero's Journey arch. The ending of "Bridal Path" is where the most connections can be drawn. Like Alice, Jason is tempted by food laid out before him. He steals from a pitcher, which closely resembles the 'drink me' potion which tempted Alice. Jason even remarks that he's so tempted, he would "die for a cup" (Mitchell 94). The connections don't stop there! After the drink has been consumed in each book, all hell breaks loose. Alice continues through the mind numbing world beneath her feet and Jason is screamed at by a nurse, who turns out to be a patient of the mental hospital.

Comments

  1. HarmonyApril 21, 2026 at 2:36 PM

    Cadence, great post! I was reading Goodreads reviews of BSG and it turns out not only did David Mitchell probably take inspiration from Alice in Wonderland and The Lord of the Rings, as you point out, but he also took a lot of inspiration from his own life! If you wanna know more, it's on Wikipedia :D. It's really interesting the parallels you draw between Alice and Wonderland and "Bridle Path"—it does feel very dreamlike and Jason drinking a mysterious liquid is such a great detail. Great thinking, Cadence! You must be smart or something...

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  2. Renee WangApril 22, 2026 at 10:28 AM

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  3. Renee WangApril 22, 2026 at 10:29 AM

    Hey Cadence, this was a really interesting blog post! I agree that there seems to be a lot of connections between Jason Taylor and other characters. I remember during one discussion, there was a thread that Jason Taylor and Dean Moran were "hobbits" adventuring out into the wilderness, which is another similarity between Mitchell's plot and "The Lord of the Rings." Furthermore, your observation that Jason's experience at the end of "Bridal Path" being like Alice's in "Alice in Wonderland" is very interesting.

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  4. Katie RasmussenApril 23, 2026 at 6:30 PM

    Hi Cadence,
    I like your comparison here! I feel like the whole sequence in chapter 1 with the ghost and the old woman in the house is slightly Alice in Wonderland-ish, and there's a clear allusion to Hansel and Gretel with the oven that Jason is afraid of. I don’t know if it got discussed in History this year when you did progressive reform in the 1800s, but there’s this short story by Edgar Allen Poe named something like “Dr. Tar and Prof. Fether” about an asylum in which the mentally ill people rebel and treat the orderlies as their patients. I think them mistaking the patient for an orderly is a reference to that.

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  5. RuijingApril 23, 2026 at 8:55 PM

    Hi Cadence!! I did not see this myself earlier, but I really resonated with your Alice comparison :D The fact that both works depict such a surreal, whimsical, disorienting journey. I think your claim of Jason as a mashup of multiple classics' characters is very interesting (and grounded!). I remember in chapter "Maggot: Mitchell makes an explicit reference to the novel Lord of the Flies, which is very intentional because what Jason was experiencing through really paralleled with the plot of the book. Anyway, great blog!!

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  6. MitchellApril 24, 2026 at 12:50 PM

    First of all, describing Jason as "trapezing" from one episode/chapter to the next in this novel is an excellent description of the narrative style, and a verb choice worthy of David Mitchell. I don't recall Jason ever using "trapeze" as a verb in the text, but he sure could have. My favorite Jason neologism in the book is when he describes himself as "froggering" around puddles at one point in "Bridle Path," evoking the video game Frogger (where a poor frog has to dodge traffic and cross the road) and turning its name into a verb.

    I also had never made the connection between Mr. Moran/alcoholism and Gollum before--I definitely see it now! It's fun to consider how diametrically opposed the respective aesthetics of _Lord of the Rings_ and _Through the Looking-Glass_ really are, and how that relates to "Bridle Path." It's not so much that the two intertexts coexist throughout the chapter: Jason naively intends his journey to follow something like the Frodo model (his poster on the wall, the goal of a big discovery and distant mountains, etc.), which implies that the journey is meaningful and there's some kind of goal or "treasure" at the end. And remember that one of Jason's favorite words at this time is "epic"--he wants his life to be "epic," and we see him (and Dean!) enlivening their prosaic surroundings with imagination.

    But Alice brings a different, more absurd dynamic into the picture: there's no sense in which Jason seems to choose or want this intertext to come into the picture, and the "loony bin"/"off the trail" ending seems more like an interruption of the hero's journey with a descent into lunacy and absurdity. It reminds us that this epic adventure takes place on April Fool's Day. The joke may well be on Jason

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  7. Mateo HernandezApril 26, 2026 at 10:55 AM

    First of all, kudos for drawing all of these connections and having all of this valuable background knowledge! I was able to create some basic connections to The Lord of the Rings (although I do admit that I have only watched the movies and not read the book), and most of the connections to Alice in Wonderland completely went over my head. I’m still a little confused as to why Mitchell decided to make all of these connections to other books, but I think that it may be because he wanted Jason to be a character who faces a hero's journey. But from face value, Jason doesn’t seem very special; he’s just an average kid who is bullied, so I think that Mitchell created a novel with these things in mind to provide hope.

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  8. Y_Jemina_FApril 26, 2026 at 9:31 PM

    Cadence, I was hooked immediately from your title, and I have to say, I totally forgot about the fact that Jason gets screamed at by a psych ward patient-- that part of the chapter felt so delirious, it really does feel right out of Alice in Wonderland. I've consumed a few different dark, "twisted" horror versions of Alice in Wonderland in different mediums, and I have to say, following along with Jason certainly felt like playing one of those video games. So in my personal opinion, Jason is probably more like Alice. But I will also concede that I have never read nor watched Lord of the Rings so maybe I have no place to say.

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    Replies
    1. Y_Jemina_FApril 26, 2026 at 9:32 PM

      I just realized I used "I have to say" in two consecutive sentences. If I could edit that comment, I would. I'm so sorry.

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  9. Alana's History as Fiction BlogApril 27, 2026 at 7:31 PM

    Cadence! I love your blogggggggggggggg when I first read the title, I was honestly very confused, I thought that I had completely missed a character in the book named Alice. I was relieved you were referring to Alice from Alice in wonderland. (I must admit, I have no idea who Frodo is. This led to more confusion) Regardless of my outside knowledge, you make a compelling blog. Also, I think this is very fitting to compare this to other popular literature because there's a lot of pop culture within this novel. Lovely read!

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  10. Emma April 27, 2026 at 8:08 PM

    Hi Cadence! When reading the book I hadn't thought of the connection to Alice in Wonderland. I don't think I have actually ever watched Alice in Wonderland all the way through, so to have you walk through the the scenes step by step and see the similarities is super interesting. It's also fascinating how well David Mitchell incorporated the both movies ideas at the same time while using references that were nearly identical at the same time. Great blog!

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