Reflective blog entry on the first seven chapters

The Novel The Power of One tells the story of a young boy – Peekay – as he progress in life, and travels the journey from childhood to manhood. In the first seven chapters of the novel the, context of the novel is laid out. The author, Bryce Courtenay, describes the background information that the reader needs to understand the rest of the novel. Throughout these chapters, Courtenay introduces several vital concepts that continue to repeat themselves through out the book. The reader is struck by the depth of the description that Courtenay uses to help the reader to picture and understand the story that is being told. Every sentence in the book uses descriptive words to create a picture in the reader’s mind of what is happening in the novel. During the fight that is described in chapter six, as a reader I felt as if I personally were watching the fight and part of the action that was taking place. This explicit detail makes the book a pleasure to read and creates a desire to continue to read.

 In the very first chapters of the book the reader is introduced to bulling. Peekay was sent to a boarding school at the age five. This was a huge change for him, as he grew up with his grandpa and nanny on his grandfather’s farm. At boarding school Peekay was bullied by the boys that were older than him. Through out his years in this boarding school, the reader is made to sympathise with him in the terrible situation that he was in. the author uses the description of the struggles that Peekay experiences to create him as the protagonist and the bullies as the antagonise.

Through out the first seven chapters of the book the author also introduces the conflict between the three dominant races that inhabited South Africa. These three races were; the black native South Africans, the Bores and the English that settled in South Africa when gold was discovered in the 1820s. Through the fist seven chapters the reader is shown that there is a definite conflict between these three races.

Peekay experiences this conflict at the boarding school. At this school the majority of the students were Bores. Peekay was English however, this lead to the bulling that Peekay experienced. The bores hated the English for the cruelty that they showed to them in the Bore War. Both the English and the Bores showed little respect for the native South Africans. This is shown with the derogatory term that was given to them –Kaffirs.

This conflict between these three races is evident through out the whole story and is a recurring theme/conflict through out the entirety of the novel.

After reading the first seven chapters the reader understands the context and background of the book, and the chapters create an expectation for the rest of the book.

After reading the first seven chapters I was able to guess what the rest of the story was going to be about. My expectation was that it would tell us how Peekay was able to accomplish his goal to be the welter weight champion of the world.

I really enjoyed the themes, views and conflicts that were introduced in the first seven chapters and looked forward to hear what the rest of the story had to offer.