the power of one

Peekay/ Peter faces many challenges during the text “power of one by bryce courtenay” which shows much he grows throughout the book. Peekay could have given up at the start but he stayed strong the whole way.

 The first issue was when his mother had a mental breakdown and he was sent to a boarding school. He was the only white child at the school and he didn’t speak the same language that the rest of the students did. He gets bullied and beaten by the judge and the jury who are the older kids at school, and they give him the name pisskop which translates to “pisshead.” Harry Crown, a shop owner, gives him the name Peekay. 

He began to suffer from bed wetting and gets beaten up every morning. During the holidays, Peekay goes back home and explains to his nanny about his bed wetting problem. The spiritual doctor gives him a chicken which he names grandpa chook. When he returns to school the judge and jury keep peekay as a prisoner for Adolf Hitler, then grandpa chook flies in and tries to save peekay but they take the chicken and kill him. Peekay is devastated and shouts “kill me but don’t kill grandpa chook!”

 Being at that boarding school was a significant change for peekay because a lot of things happened to change him as a person.

 When he returns home from boarding school he doesn’t see his nanny waiting for him, instead his mother. His next challenge. He discovers now that she is back home she has become a lord worshiper and anyone who does not worship the lord will go to hell in her opinion. Peekay finds out the reason his nanny is gone was because she did not worship the lord, Peekay completely disagreed with her. Peekay’s mother was not a very good mum to him, until she let him go see his good friend doc.

 Just when things were going alright for Peekay, one of his really close friends, Geel Piet gets brutally killed. He met Geel Piet at a prison. Peekay was the one who discovered Geel Piet’s lifeless body lying in a pool of blood. Peekay lost one of his best friends that day.

In conclusion, Peekay had faced many difficult challenges in very few years which shaped him as a person and he grew quite mature faster than a normal kid would because of these. All of the issues I talked about were the outcome of many other challenges he went through during his life. But he always found a way to cope and power through it.