The Presence of Courage in Literature

1. The Presence of Courage in Literature By: Lexi S. Period 3

2. Courage The state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possesion, confidence, and resolution; bravery. -TheFreeDictionary.com

3. Examples of Courage: Oedipus Rex King Oedipus is faced with the ongoing fear that he will murder his father and lie wit his mother. He soon realizes that he had killed his father and has married his mother. When his mother/wife finds out this decides to she kill her self. Oedipus then blinds himself and exiles himself because he killed his father, the past king. • It took a lot of courage for Oedipus to exile himself and stick to his word of exiling his fathers killer. He walked away from his children and his people to a place near a cliff. He faced the danger of the unknown and faced the fact that he might starve to death or be harmed by animals.

4. Oedipus Rex Con. • By Oedipus blinding himself instead of just ending his life, he shows that he actual has true bravery in the fact that he deserves a horrible punishment. - He is able to accept his execution and follow through with it. Oedipus heads into the woods with nothing but the clothes on his back and faces the danger of truly being alone and that is the definition of bravery.

5. Lexi Sink Examples of Courage: The Fault in our Stars The main character Hazel Lancaster is suffering from cancer and her undoubted take on life is full of courageous understanding. There is one quote that directly represents this theme: -“ There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone even existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you…and if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it.”

6. The Fault in Our Stars Con. • Hazel’s opinion on this takes a brave quality of mind. • She faces the fear that she will be forgotten and she accepts that and takes it in stride. • Hazel also understands that someday she will die its inevitable. She faces the danger of her death and she's not scared because she knows this will happen anyway. • Hazel shows courage in her way of accepting the thing that she can not control.

7. Examples of Courage: Divergent The main character Tris is given the decision to leave all she has ever known or join the people that scare her the most. Tris bravely makes the decision to leave her home and join the dauntless. • Tris shows her bravery by joining ruthless fighters and even jumps into the pit of the dauntless building first. • There is one quote that represent the topic of courage in this book and they are: -“We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in courage that drives one person to stand up for another. -“ I have a theory that selflessness and bravery aren't all that different.” • Courage is expressed In this book as its when you do the right thing even if its hard and it hurts you. Tris shows this by not quitting the initiation of becoming a dauntless. • Tris explains that by putting yourself aside and doing what you have to that you basically being the bravest you can be.

8. My Personal Connection to Courage My father passed away when I was 10 years old and it had been a very traumatic experience for me. It had been very hard for me to cope with everything after he passed. It took a lot of courage for me to be able to go on and still be myself and not let this affect me in a bitter way. My views may have then changed a bit but I had to find a state of mind where I had to be brave for the people around me or they would crumble. So I had then decided to be strong and not let things affect me as much because I had to take care of my sister and my mom. I sort of developed my own mindset of courage and began to put the people I love before me because it was for the greater good. I think that Idea of putting others before yourself even though it causes you pain is the true definition of courage.

9. Presence of Courage These three texts all have a consistent presence of bravery and courage. I also keep a constant amount of courage of my day to day life. This topic of courage is very personal for me because there a lot of ways I can connect with it because it’s a trait that I want to see in myself. These characters in these texts have portrayed courage as have I in hard situations.

10. Bibliography • Green, John. The Fault in Our stars, 2012. • Roth, Veronica. Divergent, 2011. • Sophocles. Oedipus Rex, 800 B.C.