A Study Guide for Bryce Courtenay's "The Power of One"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Bryce Courtenay's "The Power of One," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jun 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535838962

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10

The Power of One

Bryce Courtenay

1989

Introduction

The Power of One is the first novel by Bryce Courtenay, a writer who was born in South Africa but has lived in Australia since 1958. It was first published in 1989 in Great Britain and Australia, as well as the United States. Loosely based on Courtenay's own biography, The Power of One follows a small, weak, English-speaking white child as he navigates a world where the strong dominate the weak, where the white population keeps the black population in a state of semi-slavery, and where the two major white ethnic groups, the English and the Afrikaans-speaking Boer, are locked in a struggle for power. Peekay finds himself caught between the two worlds. To the Boers, he is a rooinek (meaning red-neck, after the English soldiers' sunburned necks), whereas to the English, his ability to speak Afrikaans and his love of boxing mark him as someone who is not a true gentleman. Peekay also speaks several African languages, and throughout the novel, he consistently sees the black people around him as full human beings. This is another sign of Peekay's difference, for the South Africa in which he is being raised is a world built on the ideas that whites are superior to blacks and that blacks owe whites deference and subservience. In a nation divided by ethnic and racial hatreds, Peekay's ability to move between worlds is exceptional, and it causes him problems as often as it opens doors to him.

Peekay escapes the brutality of his world through education. He befriends Doc, an elderly professor, who teaches him to play the piano, to identify rare cacti, to play chess, and not to hate anyone. When Doc is incarcerated as an enemy alien during World War II, he is given much more freedom than an ordinary prisoner because he is an artist and scientist. Peekay learns that becoming an educated person can set him apart from the brutality of the prison. Along with Doc, the characters of Mrs. Boxall and Miss Bornstein both contribute to Peekay's education and take on the challenge of teaching the black prisoners how to read, write, and do basic math. Throughout the novel, Peekay's success in school is what sets him apart and allows him to escape the cycle of brutality in which he is mired.

Despite his education, Peekay is no stranger to violence. Beaten as a child, he encounters a boxer on a train who teaches him that by being smart and quick, small people can escape victim-hood. Peekay takes this lesson to heart and determines to become the welterweight champion of the world when he grows up. He trains as a boxer, and although he learns to distinguish boxing from fighting, he is not above using a dirty trick in a street fight. The lure of violence is always a challenge for Peekay, as he is a poor boy in a violent nation where the strong take what they want from the weak. It is finally through a combination of education and violence that Peekay escapes South Africa. His education wins him a scholarship to Oxford University in England, but he earns the money he needs to get there by doing brute physical work in the copper mines of Rhodesia. This is the central tension of The Power of One, whether to succeed through wit and speed or through brute strength. In the end, Peekay must combine the two qualities in order to escape his country and move into the world.

Author Biography

Courtenay was born on August 14, 1933, in Johannesburg, South Africa. His mother, Maude, was single when he was