Beyond The Bayou Analysis

Courage is a virtue that has many ways of being expressed. For some, courage might be finally asking someone out on a date and for others, it means putting their life on the line. For instance, in order for La Folle in “Beyond the Bayou” to help Cheri, she erases an imaginary boundary she had once set as a child. Similarly, in “Signal,” Semyon risks his life to help others. In both “Beyond the Bayou” by Kate Chopin and “Signal” by Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin, the main characters are similar in that they show courage by dealing with hardships, opposing adversities, and being selfless.

In “Beyond the Bayou,” La Folle suffered trauma as a child; likewise, in “Signal,” Semyon’s hardship comes in the form of the death of both his father and son.

La Folle pushes her physical limits to get Cheri to help; this demonstrates that although exhausted, this was a task she needed to complete. Despite the effort it took her to run while carrying Cheri, she did not faint or give up until she hands him off and is in good hands. She was visibly exhausted, as she had bloodshot eyes and labored breathing; despite this, La Folle did not collapse until Cheri was in his father’s arms (Chopin, line 79, 85, 86). Semyon pushed his physical limits by running through the pain. This emphasizes that despite the pain his rheumatism caused, every time he fell, he picked himself back up and kept running because he was determined; at the point he felt “his strength was exhausted, [and] he could run no farther”, he finally stopped and proceeded to attempt to get the engineer’s attention (Garshin, line 11, 157). Temporary bodily pain was nothing compared to the pain that would have been felt by the relatives and of the train passengers who would have lost their lives, pain that he himself had felt. Both stories show that despite both characters being as exhausted, they continued to push their limits because their strong moral compass told them helping others was the right and courageous thing to