Describe at least one memorable idea in the text. Explain why this idea was memorable to you.
‘The Power of One’ by Bryce Courtney is a novel following the life of a young South African boy named Peekay facing the odds of racism, school, and the African legends interfering with his dream of boxing. It has many memorable ideas, but I think three of the most memorable are oppression, belonging/camouflage and magic vs. logic because of how they’re described, represented and linked to real situations and events in our world.
Let’s get the biggest out of the way and start with the idea of oppression. Oppression is debatably one of the most important themes in the text as a whole. Not only does it play a huge role in Peekay’s character, but it also plays a huge role in our everyday lives. Since this novel could very much be considered a historical fiction, many of its events and themes fit in with real events that happened in that setting and time. ‘The Power of One’ takes place during and after World War Two and refferences to the holocaust and Nazi party are made throughout the beginning of the book. Not only that, but people of colour are also heavily discriminated throughout the entire book, very similar to the Pre-Civil-Rights-Act era. Courtney portrays not only oppression, but the struggle of a child who isn’t familiar with the idea of segregation being introduced to a very segregated world.
Peekay had spent the first seven or so years of his life in an African village in the wilderness of the country. His first ever encounter with any racism at all is when he is sent to a boarding school hours away from his home. He is bullied and borderline abused for being English. He’s given the name ‘Piskop’, an Afrikaans word for ‘Pisshead,’ and is called a ‘Rooinek,’ another slur meaning, ‘Englishman.’ Throughout his upbringing he befriends and grows up with people who don’t seem to believe in integration, such as his mother’s church group known as ‘born again christians,’ his school teachers, his friends and others who tend not to show much respect to people of colour. For example, when Peekay suggests he teaches black South Africans to read and write on his high school campus, his friends reply to his suggestion with exclamations such as, ‘Christ Peekay, isn’t that a bit far? Educate the black bastards and before you know where you are they’ll want to take over the country.’ Peekay seems to be the only young character that truly believes in integration, giving us an insight on what it’s like to live as a young boy who has different views as the norm.
One of my favourite representations of oppression in this book is the character Geel Piet. Geel Piet was a coloured and old prisoner at Barberton Prison, a place where Peekay is trained in boxing and where his very close friend, a German music professor by the nickname Doc, was put into prison after being arrested just for being German. Geel Piet helped coach Peekay in boxing and turned out to be an excellent teacher, most likely being the reason Peekay has never lost a fight in his young career. In chapter 15, Geel Piet is murdered by a new officer at the prison, an awful white man by the name of Lieutenant Boreman. The death of this character is plausibly the first massive turning point in the book. Before this dreadful night, Geel Piet had gained as much respect as a coloured prisoner could in a racist, segregated prison. He obeyed the officers, showed respect to everyone he came across and was shown to be an exceptional teacher but is killed just for refusing to tell Boreman who planned a concert for the prisoners. It is without a doubt unfair, but that’s the point. Little moments like this continue to surface throughout the rest of the book. For instance, When Peekay starts to fight on his school boxing team, he develops a curious amount of Black African followers, crying out chants such as ‘Onoshobishobi Ingelosi!’ This phrase will be explained later on, but we soon realise that this group of fans is largely ignored by the whites watching and monitoring the fights. According to Peekay, ‘…for the first three years no white spectator bothered to ask for a translation of what was being said,’ revealing, ‘…an indication of the enormous dichotomy between white and black.’ These moments remind us that we aren’t in some fictional world, this is reality. Good people die. Bad people rise to power. Justice is not served to everyone. People are spit on for their beliefs, for their cultures, for their skin colour.
Oppression is such a memorable idea in this text because of how important and frequent it is in the story. You never forget that oppression exists, you’re reminded of it almost every second. So many of the characters that we care about are discriminated against and put down and so many of the characters we despise are oppressors and abusers. But why is oppression so prominent? One of the characters in the text said, ‘Man brutalised thinks only of his survival,’ which fits in extremely well with the next idea.
The second memorable idea I’d like to talk about is the idea of belonging and camouflage. This idea appears more frequently in the book than is acknowledged, mostly when Peekay finds himself in a new environment or when the story needs to remind us of the circumstances the book takes place in. The belief that fitting in whether or not it’s wrong will get you further in life than standing out for doing the right thing is described in the books like a virus contaminating whoever performs the act of ‘camouflage.’ Belonging is seen as necessary to have a good life, even Peekay believes that blending in will get him advantages much greater than the ones he would achieve through standing out and being himself. Blending in is shown as a necessary tool for survival which parallels directly with real life. Especially seen in social media and adolescent society, fitting in is a form of protection. Only in the past decade or so are people really starting to express themselves for who they want to be, and those who don’t fade into the majority.
The biggest example of this is when Lieutenant Smit, a jailer at Barberton Prison, and the coach of the town’s boxing team, had a photo taken of the boxing team with Geel Piet. Before the photo was taken, more than half of the boxing team and a few instructors had stepped out because they didn’t want to take a picture with someone of colour standing as their equal. Peekay exclaimed that, ‘The photograph captured the exact moment when I understood with the conviction that racism is a primary force of evil designed to destroy good men.’ The photos taken were kept until Lieutenant Smit was promoted to Captain and asked for all the copies of the photos to be destroyed in order to keep his reputation. Lieutenant Smit is just one of these examples and there were probably hundreds if not thousands more like him. This situation is like a punch straight to the heart. This book takes place after World War Two, when discrimination, oppression, and racism seemed to be worse than it had been in years if not decades. We can tell that Smit has a good heart, but he sees his career as more important than his moral compass, contrasting greatly with Peekay who mainly does the direct opposite.
This topic also has some real world implications. I think the best example of this is the music industry. If you’ve followed an artist for a while before then you’d know that some change the style of their music to the norms and popular styles of the time, rather than sticking to what they’ve created on their own. In some cases, this is just a choice made by the artist to experiment and try something different. In others, it’s decided upon through a contract with a bigger or more popular music producer. There are many stories about agents and organisations, not just of music artists, but of many popularity-based careers, stripping away their client’s individuality and free will as a method of making as much money as possible, and if you look hard enough, it can be very easy to see. I believe situations like this have very similar parallels with ‘The Power Of One’ and its topic of belonging and camouflage which is why it’s so memorable. We can think of many real world situations where this idea is in play.
The third and final idea that I found memorable in ‘The Power Of One’ is magic vs. logic. Magic v. logic, in my opinion, is the toughest to explain. In a nutshell, it is the concept of questioning the logic in magic. ‘Magic’ can and does influence the actions of many of the characters in this novel. Examples of the belief and questioning of that magic in the book are Peekay’s class questioning the existence of racism in heaven, asking, ‘If nobody is dirty in heaven and black and white are equal, why then can’t they live in the same place as us?’ and the myth of the ‘Tadpole Angel,’ the, ‘…story amongst all the tribes that a chief will rise who is not of them but who will unite them against the oppressors.’ The ‘Tadpole Angel’ itself is a huge factor in the concept of magic v. logic as a whole.
The legend of ‘Onoshobishobi Ingelosi’, also known as the ‘Tadpole Angel,’ greatly influenced Peekay’s boxing career, adding a lot of responsibility to his dream of becoming the Welterweight Champion of the World, a champion boxing title. There is also a theme of magic v. logic in Peekay’s mother, a so-called ‘born again’ Christian. She finds logic in magic rather than the magic in logic like her son does, not questioning the ethics in The Lord’s actions and decisions but instead seeking advice through The Lord and blindly believing in him.
Peekay, as we saw with Lieutenant Smit’s situation, directly opposes his mother’s beliefs. He is very much a realist and works towards his goals rather than pray and have faith that everything will just work itself out. He was taught by Doc to question everything, and the rift between Peekay and his mother through their beliefs has a massive impact on their relationship.
This theme is memorable to me because of how sheerly interesting it is and how I can relate to it. My family is very much a logical one. We aren’t religious and are constantly questioning the logic of religions, especially in times when we’re talking to religious friends. The entire argument of religion has always been intriguing to me. I believe there also aren’t a whole lot of characters in books that question the logic in almost everything like Doc and Peekay do. Media doesn’t teach us to question things until adolescence or even later. At a young age, we are taught to have faith in the things we see, not to question them, and I believe the fact that this book has a main character that openly questions and influences others to openly question vague logic at an early age is such an interesting take on a child’s outlook on life.
In conclusion, Bryce Courtney portrays the concepts of oppression, belonging/camouflage and magic v. logic, three interesting ideas of the real world in the setting of ‘The Power Of One’ through description, representation and real world implications. Each of these themes were very memorable to me because each of them can be linked to a real situation throughout our lives and discussed amongst others. Courtney has written a story that has topics that can be easily applied to specific situations and helps the reader understand the struggles of someone with beliefs of equality in a racist society.
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