Inner Strength

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The word, strength means the power of exerting muscular force but theres also inner strength which is the overcoming of obstacles when others told you it couldn't be done. Strength is to wake up every morning and think, not what could I have done, but what I can do in the future and also being able to try again instead of giving up. Once one has pushed through their mental barriers, they continue to push through harder barriers and thus, they become stronger inside. Inner strength shows that you should live life to the fullest and that you have the power within yourself to rise above the things in life that try to hold you down and that you should not give up. You have the strength to continue on when things seem to be at their worst.
In the poem, “Making a fist” by Naomi Shihab Nye conveys the message in the car ride that she takes with her mom at a young age symbolizes her life and the facts that the journey through life would not be easy. In stanza 3, she speaks of crossing “borders”. These are meant to represent not the borders of states that are on their car trip, but the borders of the different aspects of our lives, things that we need to get past in order to live a fulfilling life: roadblocks to our happiness. The poem shows that life is full of struggles. The first few stanzas talk about her when she was only 7 and felt like she might be dying. The drumming is fading away the farther they drive. She looks out the window at the trees as they drive past them. After driving for days she asks her mother, “How do you know if your going to die?” Her mother responds with, “When you can no longer make a fist.” Meaning that the clenching of the fist is meant to symbolize our willingness to go on, our desire not to quit, and no...

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...t have to get out of bed to feel the cold. The father has the most inner strength because the family doesn’t ever seem to thank him, ever, and the father still continues on to warm up the house.
In conclusion, all two stories and the poem all conveys inner strength in some way or another. The poem showed inner strength by showing the character that she was strong and not dying and that she was alive and lies in the backseat clenching and opening one small fist. In the story, “Through the Tunnel” also shows inner strength from the little boy who tried to swim under the tunnel without taking a breath and he proved to the other boys that he had the guts to do it. And lastly, the story, “Those Winter Sundays” shows inner strength by knowing that the father has the most inner strength because he still warms up the house even though the family never seems to thank him.

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