The Power of One

Peekay the main character of The Power of One has gotton of the train and he moves in with his grandfather and his mother who is no longer having her mental breakdown/being in an internment camp (it isn't entirely clear if she was both in an internment camp and having a mental breakdown or some variation of that.) He meets new characters in the town such as Doc a german piano teacher who is also a biologist, and he pursues his new dream of becoming the welterweight champion of South Africa but he is taught boxing by a guard at the local prison and he is by far the smallest kid there. He constantly quotes Hoppie saying "first with the head then with the heart" which I believe is a concept I haven't explained. Overall the quote means that you must come up with a plan in your head then go through with that plan with you heart. I haven't gotton to any major conflicts yet but he is taking piano lessons from Doc who is a German man and the nation of South Africa is officially at war with Germany at the time so I predict that his nationality will create problems for him and Peekay later on in the novel.

Big Hettie

Big Hettie is a very perplexing character in The Power of One. First of she is a morbidly obese drunk Irish woman, she carries around a big bag of food and obviously suffers from a crippling eating disorder. She was married to a flyweight boxer who was the only flyweight in South Africa at the time so he was always forced to fight larger men who knock him out every match. Unfortunately he suffered a hemorrhage during one of his fights and died. She grieves for his loss and seems to carry on her life with him through the boxer Hoppie who I referenced in my last post. Also the character Big Hettie seems a little unbalanced she is both a tragic character because of her husbands death, her eating disorder, and her death. But she is also a funny idea she is just so tragic but everything she does is instantly a joke like when she gets drunk in the compartment with the main character and when he awakes he thinks that he is dead because of the stench. She is also very random in a way because she doesn't seem like a very important character who delivers only one lasting line and idea that Hoppie could easily have delivered. She seems like one of the random people you meet and they are just so odd that they must be mentioned or maybe the author has some connection to a person of this type and decided to put their story in the novel (since the book is semi-autobiographical). The important phrase she says is "courage is what make you life your head up, pride is what makes you do it." Eventually her morbid obesity catches up with her when she dies while stuck in between two bunks on a train and is rendered immovable.

Research Paper

Should the United States invade Sudan to stop the Genocide in Darfur?

Straus, Scott. "Darfur and the Genocide Debate." SIRS. Feb. 2005. 7 Dec. 2008 .

Scott Straus writes about the debate over if the conflict in Darfur is even a Genocide he tells of the cause of the conflict between the Arab people in Darfur and the Black Africans who also occupy the region. The Sudanese government armed the Arab nomadic groups who began raiding cities and killing many blacks. The Arabs were armed to stop the black rebels and these groups of armed Arabs became known as the janjaweed which can be translated to "evil men on horseback". Much of this conflicts fault rests in the extreme draught in the country. Strangely enough much of the attention paid to the conflicts in Darfur are over the debate on whether or not it should be called a genocide or not, not how to stop this "genocide".


Farley, Maggy, and Edmund Sanders. "Push For Sudan Warrant Gets A Mixed Response." SIRS. 15 July 2008. 7 Dec. 2008 .

Farley and Sanders discuss the condemnation of the Sudanese president as a criminal. They discuss the ramifications of this act they say that if he is declared a criminal there will be more effort from many nations to stop his genocide but it could also strengthen the resolve of his followers. Also if the president is declared a criminal that would close off any possibilities to negotiate with him, the Sudanese people will also see him as a vulnerable figure if he is officially declared a criminal by more powerful foreign leaders. It is not clear if declaring the Sudanese president a criminal will benefit the efforts to stop the genocide and bring peace or if it will hinder them.


Hunter-Gault, Charlayne. "A crisis up close: the sole reporter on a historic trip to Darfur with world peacekeepers, Africa Bureau Chief Charlayne Hunter-Gault updates us on the worsening conflict.(africa dispatch)." Essence 38.11 (March 2008): 156(4). Student Resource Center - Gold. Gale. Edina Public Schools. 8 Dec. 2008

Hunter writes that the USA has provided sanctions against many companies that the but the Darfurian people are afraid that if there is foreign intervention in their conflict they will only suffer more. She says an African proverb that states "When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. Innocent Darfuri men, women and children continue to be trampled." This shows that the Sudanese people are worried that UN or US intervention will cause the janjaweed to become more violent and that the US will make the same mistakes they did in Iraq and the people of Darfur will suffer.


Berger, Rose Marie. "A responsibility to protect: is military intervention the only way?(DARFUR)." Sojourners Magazine 35.11 (Dec 2006): 8(2). Expanded Academic ASAP. Gale. Edina Public Schools. 8 Dec. 2008
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Berger writes that a humanitarian war in Darfur could result in the the killings of more civilians. She cites the massive casualties of civilians in the Iraq war which also has it's roots in a humanitarian cause against a malevolant dictator who was also believed to have WMDs. She says that humanitarian wars rarely yeild humanitarian results. Berger claims that financially attacking some Sudanese officials will hinder their genocide. Also controling the media to point a spotlight onto the problems in Darfur could help provent the killings.

The Power Of One

So I finished The Road and have decided to move on to reading The Power of One since I recently learned that my Call of the Wild book is abridged.
The story so far. The Power of One is a book about a child growing up in South Africa just as WWII is starting out, this boy is sent to a boarding school where he is the youngest kid there by at least a year and he is constantly harassed. In South Africa at this time there were many ethnic factions and most of where the main character lives is dominated by the "boers" who are South Africans of Germanic descent, and he is English. These two factions had been warring at the turn of the century and the boers were sent to some of the worlds first concentration camps. Unfortunately for Peekay (the main character's nickname, his real name has not been mentioned) the school is entirely boers seeking revenge for what the "rooineks" or English had done to their ancestors. A lot of events happen at the school but I really don't want to go into them right now. After leaving school he is moving to the city with his Grandfather. He is riding a train to the city and is paired with the train guard Hoppie Greonwald an Irish boxer. While Peekay is with Hoppie he becomes obsessed with the sport of boxing and witnesses a boxing match between the 145 lb. Hoppie and a 225 lb. brute Jackhammer Smit. Hoppie obviously being a protagonist in the story wins against Jackhammer Smit by out smarting him in the blazing 105 degree temperature by boxing Jackhammer Smit's eyes closed then getting a TKO with a uppercut. Hoppie's influence on Peekay give Peekay the aspiration to become a welterweight boxer.

A major theme expressed so far in this book is the story of big versus small, before Hoppie's fight the announcer references the biblical fight between David and Goliath, Peekay is beaten and "tortured" by the Nazi Boer kid who he calls the Judge. The book stresses that whomever has the most heart and the smartest head will win not just the strongest contender.