Power+of+One+tasks

Most of the events in The Power of One are based on Bryce Courtenay’s Personal life. Courtenay was born in 1933 in South Africa as an illegitimate child. He was raised among black Africans in an isolated homestead in the Lebombo Mountains. At five years of age, he was sent to a boarding school, which was a mixture between a reform school and an orphanage. Here, he learned how to box in order to survive. He moved to Barberton in the North Eastern Part of South Africa and there met with a German music teacher called Doc, who was perpetually drunk. Courtenay and Doc spent much time wandering in the South African bush together. Courtenay attended a prestigious private high school, and then studied journalism at an English university. He was banned from returning to South Africa for initiating a weekend school for black people at his high school. Courtenay fell in love with an Australian woman, Benita, while studying in England and followed her to Sydney, where they got married. Now they have three sons and two grandsons. He began to write at the age of forty-five after a long and successful career in journalism. His first novel, //The Power of One// published in 1989 and a bestseller was followed by other bestselling novels by him. Among his acclaimed novels are //Tandia//, //The night Country//, //The potato farm, Jessica, April Fool’s Day// e.t.c. The political background of he novel is that of World War II and the beginning of the apartheid era in South Africa. Although the term ‘apartheid was coined in 1948, white supremacy existed on a wide scale in South Africa before this time. The first half of the 1900 was marked by the segregation of the different racial and socio-economic groups. The wealthy and technologically advance British South Africans discriminated against the less privileged Afrikaner farmers or “Boers”. Similarly, the various black tribes of South Africa and the all whites in positions of power were also separated. This conflict arose from the Anglo-Boer War fought between 1899 and 1902, in which an army of 500,000 British fought against a clan of 87,000 Boers. Although the Boers won some of the earlier battles, they were defeated by the British, who created the world’s first concentration camps, in which 26,000 Boers died in addition to 14,000 black people who died in separate camps formed by the British. This led a deadly hatred between the Boers and the British which later transformed into a political split in 1914 when the Afrikaner nationalists formed their own party (National Party: NP) and the British continued to lead South Africa Party (SAP), which was the ruling party. The tension between the whites and the blacks was increased during the World War I when NA supported Germany while SAP supported the allies. Economic depression in 1934 compelled the parties to unite as the United Party (UP), but by late 1930s (when The Power of One begins) Afrikaner Nationalism was awakening again. D. F. Malan formed the Purified National Party, which was closely linked to the ex-parliamentary, radical group called the Oxwagon Guard. The Oxwagon Guard shared Hitler’s Nazi beliefs in racial purity. Although the Sap initiated some racist laws before the 1930s (such as the Land Act of 1913, which forbade black people from buying land outside specified areas, and the Urban Areas Act of 1923, which prevented black people from living in towns where they were not needed by whites), it was D. F. Malan’s National Party that began to escalate the racist laws. During the war, however, cheap black labor was in demand in the cities, and the laws were less strenuous. In the 1948 government elections, Jan Smuts and his United Party lost and D.F. Malan and the Nationalists seized power. D.F. Malan began to institutionalize his brainchild called 'apartheid' ('apartness' in Afrikaans), which was advertised as a way of helping each South African race to develop independently. This was merely a front for a brutal and sinister regime which gave whites complete dominion over South Africa, and forced black people (who made up 87% of the population) to live in a mere 13% of the land. During the 1950s, a number of laws set the apartheid system in motion. In 1950, the Group Areas Act made it illegal for whites and blacks to live together in residential areas. The pass laws introduced a nine o' clock curfew for black South Africans, and forced them to carry passes with them at all times. Lack of a pass could justify arrest. It was only towards the end of the 1980s, due to the efforts of F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela that apartheid began to be dismantled. The Nationalists essentially dominated the country for fifty years, treating not only its black citizens, but also its Indian and "colored" citizens with extreme violence and brutality. Plot Overview: The novel traces the adventures of [)|Peekay]], an English-speaking South African boy, from age five to age seventeen, from the year 1939 to 1951. After his mother suffers from a nervous breakdown, the five-year-old Peekay is brought up by his Zulu nanny and his Granpa on a farm in the province of Natal. Soon after, he is sent to an Afrikaans boarding school, where--as the youngest of all the students and the only English-speaker--he is brutally tortured by the other boys. The Judge , a senior boy called Jaapie Botha, and his so-called "stormtroopers" punish Peekay for his bedwetting habit and his circumcised penis by means of constant verbal and physical abuse. They call him derogatory names in Afrikaans such as "pisskop" (piss head) and "rooinek" (redneck), a term used for Englishmen during the Boer War (fought between the British and the Boers, or Afrikaners). The Judge, who wears a swastika tattoo on his arm, convinces the innocent Peekay that Hitler is on a mission to march all Englishmen into the sea and to restore glory to the Afrikaners. Mevrou, the Afrikaans woman who runs the boarding house, walks around brandishing her deadly "sjambok" (cane stick), instead of offering solace. Peekay returns home after his first year of school, and his nanny commissions the famous black chief -Inkosikazi to solve Peekay's bedwetting dilemma. Not only does Inkosi-Inkosikazi manage this, but he also opens Peekay's mind to a special place of "dreaming"-a place of three waterfalls and ten stones-where Peekay may always find him. Peekay returns to school the following year with his problem solved, with Granpa Chook one of Inkosi-Inkosikazi's magic chicken, and with the independent spirit he refers to as the "power of one." Granpa Chook becomes Peekay's only friend at school, and Mevrou allows him to live in the kitchen where he keeps the cockroaches at bay. Peekay excels at school, yet he has learnt that surviving the system means one has to adopt a camouflage -he thus hides his brilliance. Nevertheless, he soon finds himself doing all the Judge's homework, which only serves to increase his intelligence. This does nothing to quash the Judge's hatred for Peekay-on the contrary, at the end of the school year the Judge forces to Peekay to eat human feces, and he kills Granpa Chook with a catapult. Traumatized, Peekay longs to arrive home to his nanny's embracing arms. But Mevrou tells him that there has been a change of plans: he is to head to the Eastern Transvaal town of Barberton, where his Granpa awaits him. Peekay's name is coined by Harry Crown, a Jewish man where Mevrou takes Peekay to buy shoes before the trip home-Harry Crown says that "Pisskop" is not a respectable name for a young man, and dubs him "PK" instead. On the train to Barberton, Peekay meets Hoppie Groenewald, boxing champion of the railways. Hoppie shows Peekay his boxing gloves, and invites the boy to watch him box a man called Jackhammer Smit, in Gravelotte, a stop on the way to Barberton. Peekay's dream to become welterweight champion of the world is born. He commits Hoppie's advice-"First with the head, then with the heart"-to memory. At the Barberton train station, Peekay's mother welcomes him-she has returned from the mental institution, and has become a born-again Christian. Peekay discovers from Dum and Dee]], the Shangaan kitchen servants, that Peekay's mother dismissed his nanny because she refused to give her life to the Lord. Peekay's mother begins trying to proselytize Peekay, but he tells his mother that the Lord is a "shithead." In the hills behind his new house, Peekay meets an old German music professor, Karl von Vollensteen]], who introduces himself as Doc and explains that he collects cacti. Doc and Peekay become firm friends (along with Mrs. Boxall]], the town librarian), and when Doc is taken to the Barberton prison since he never registered as a foreign alien, Peekay visits him for music lessons. The prison has a boxing squad where Peekay begins lessons under the special instruction of a Cape colored man, Geel Piet]]. Peekay quickly develops into an outstanding boxer, leading the team-the Barberton Blues-to victory. Peekay has great compassion for the black prisoners, and works out a black market scheme with Geel Piet and Doc for tobacco and letters. In such a way, Peekay becomes a legend among black South Africans - they believe he is a chief, the Onoshobishobi Ingelosi]] " or "Tadpole Angel." One of the white prison wardens suspects that some illegal activity is underway, and one night Peekay discovers Geel Piet has been murdered in the boxing gym by the violent warder Borman . World War II ends and Doc becomes free once again. Doc, Mrs. Boxall, and a Jewish schoolteacher Miss Bornstein develop Peekay's precocious intellect through music, literature, chess, and science. To the delight of the town, Peekay passes his Royal College of Music exams and also wins the Eastern Transvaal under-twelve boxing title. With the help of his mentors, Peekay wins a scholarship to the prestigious Prince of Wales school in Johannesburg. Book Two of the novel describes Peekay's experiences at the Prince of Wales school. He quickly partners up with the son of a Jewish multimillionaire, Morrie Levy. Peekay and Morrie take the school by storm-Peekay's boxing talent reforms the pathetic Prince of Wales boxing team, and Morrie becomes Peekay's manager. Soon the two boys have a lucrative gambling business set up, as well as all kinds of other "scams" which bring in enough money for Peekay to begin boxing lessons with South Africa's top coach, Solly Goldman. Peekay becomes a stranger to failure, excelling at boxing, rugby, and academics. However, he must face Doc's death towards the end of his school career as well as the disappointment of not winning a Rhodes scholarship to attend Oxford University. Book Three traces Peekay's life in Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) where he takes on a dangerous (but lucrative) job as a "grizzly man" in the mines in order to build up his body for his boxing and to earn enough money to pay his way through three years at Oxford. He forms a close friendship with a Russian miner, Rasputin, who eventually saves Peekay during a mining catastrophe, killing himself in the process. Peekay recovers but, before leaving the mines, he discovers that he has been working for his old nemesis, Jaapie Botha. Peekay fights Jaapie and knocks him out. Over Botha's swastika tattoo, Peekay chisels a Union Jack and the letters "PK".