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.