With Courage, One’s Life Is Ruled by Fear

Without courage, one’s life is ruled by fear. Discuss. Without courage, one’s life is ruled by fear. Fear is one of the most powerful emotions human beings know, it can motivate people to do incredible things. In the movie; “The Power of One” there are many that, due to the apartheid in South Africa and in the ignorant racism, lack courage. Courage is a quality that enables a person to look beyond the immediate danger and assess the possible outcomes in order to make the decision to act and achieve the desired outcome.

The main character of ‘The Power of One’, P. K is sent to an Afrikaner boarding school because his mother suffers a mental breakdown. At the school, P. K is the only English boy, and seeing as the English drove the Afrikaners out of power in South Africa, they blame him for everything and P. K begins to wet the bed at night out of fear. P. K. confides in Nanny that he is wetting the bed. Nanny calls a medicine man that is said to, “make sick men well and scared men brave. The medicine man helps P. K. face his fears and overcome them. Nanny gives P. K. a chicken to take back to school, and P. K names the chicken, ‘Mother Courage’ this is a major symbol in the fact that it represents P. K’s courage and being able to overcome the fear of the other kids. P. K. gets sent to live with his grandfather who runs an Afrikaner prison. One of his grandfather’s friends Doc is asked to look after P. K. Doc is moved into a prison and P. K. goes with him and in prison P.

K meets a man named Geel Piet who teaches him how to box and gives him strength, courage and power with his quote; “Little beat big when little smart, first with the head, and then with the heart. ” The Afrikaner prison is riddled with fear from the African inmates towards the guards who beat them and treat them like dirt just to exert the authority given to them and to get across a point that whites are supreme compared to the blacks or considered a higher class of people. P. K gives the inmates courage to sing in their native language about the guards and how they no longer fear them.

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Geel Piet is confronted by a guard about what the inmates are singing about and just before the guard beats him to death, Piet musters the courage to stand up to the guard and be a free man. Without courage, one’s life is ruled by fear. Every one of us has courage in large amounts but it is squashed with those that are given unreasonable authority and fear an uprise. We all have courage, but sometimes it takes other people or influences such as, life threatening situations, for us to stand up and embrace the courage given to us. Without this, one’s life is ruled by fear. By Jarryd Mckellar.

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