Essay On Tu By Patricia Grace

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The novel Tu, written by Patricia Grace, is about three brothers that decide for different reasons that they all needed or wanted to go to war. The book is written so that the reader is reading from two view points. There is the first person point of view, which is told through by Tu through journals he kept during the time he was at war. Then there is also the third person point of view which is used to give us background information about Pita and things that happened before he decided to go to war. I believe that Patricia wrote this as an anti-war novel. She shows us the devastating effects that war can have on families, and uses the different perspectives from many characters like the father, Rangi, Pita, and Tu throughout the novel to …show more content…

One way Grace shows that this is an anti-war novel is through the father and the post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that he experiences. The father is badly injured in battle and has to return home. Pita describes that his presence was like “a dead space in the room and in their lives” (page 52). The father would sit in a big armchair in front of the windows, but was not able speak to them. The only thing the father could muster was grunts, but as time went on he was able to regain control over his body and began to speak recognizable words again. Normally this would be a good thing, but with his body control came the violence. “The first time it happened Pita woke in the night to the sound of their father smashing through the house” (page 56). The father began having these outbursts consistently where he would break lamps, pictures, and hurt those trying to make him stop. In Pita’s early years he would always run to get help, but as he and Rangi grew older, they began …show more content…

They talk about their little brother Tu, devise on a plan that will save their little brother from the war. The plan includes hurting Tu, but they agree it will be the best thing for him in the long run. Tu recalls what happened to him, “There’s a blow to the side of my head which can only be from the butt of a swinging rifle. It lays me out. After that there’s a careful removal of clothing and a careful bayonet cutting that is done exactly, sufficiently – an operation which will ensure that for me the war is ended” (page 254). Rangi and Pita knew that there was no way Tu would ever leave the war on his own, so they take it into their hands to make the decision for him. “This is what they chose for me, my brothers, making sure I had injuries enough to send me home or keep me in hospital until it’s all over, making sure I’ll never steady a rifle again” (page 254). This is an important moment in the book because it shows the length that the two older brothers, Rangi and Pita, are willing to go just to get Tu out of combat and away from war. Grace is showing the extreme length that the brothers went to keep Tu safe, and is trying to show people that if Tu was never at war he never would have had these serious injuries inflicted on

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