Perseverance In Daniel James Brown's The Boys In The Boat

Everyone goes through challenges, but it is up to an individual to overcome and persevere through them. Daniel James Brown demonstrates his meaning of perseverance by writing The Boys in the Boat. Occurring around the Great Depression, this novel follows a group of boys from the University of Washington row team, who go through severe hardships to receive a gold medal in the 1936 Olympics. The novel focuses on the character Joe Rantz and his life journey to become a row team member. Joe Rantz, perseveres through a rollercoaster of hopeless situations, including rejection from his family, severe hunger, and the struggles from the Depression-era. The Boys in the Boat uses Joe Rantz’s young life to portray our ability to overcome obstacles and

to go on when all hope seems to be lost through adapting, self-motivation, and hard work.
Adapting to new situations is a critical part of shaping perseverance. Growing up, Joe Rantz had a rough childhood, his mom passed away when he was four. Soon after his mom passed away Joe’s father, Harry, fled to Canada for over a year. Once Harry came back he married his son’s wife twin sister, Thula. As Brown writes, “For Joe, all this marrying meant another new home and another adjustment” (29). At a young age, Joe has to learn to adapt to new surroundings, while dealing with the grief from his mother passing and trying to bond with his new step mother. People who can mentally handle adapting to situations have a higher chance of overcoming obstacles. In chapter two Harry tells Joe “he would have to move out of the house. Joe was ten” (36). Again, Joe is stuck adapting to another new lifestyle. He seems hopeless without a place to stay, food, and support from his family. At the age of ten, no one could imagine living on their own but Joe had to face this reality. He had to adapt by living in the schoolhouse, getting a job, and realizing he will not have family support to maintain a livable lifestyle.
An individual can preserve through self- motivation, Joe expresses this by not having relationships with any peers in the schoolhouse causing him to live a very independent life.

By living independently this show’s Joe is self-motivating for the betterment of himself. Joe is not working to make his family proud, he is doing this for himself. Also by self-motivation he is seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Having the self-motivation to stay in school, he learned “If you simply kept your eyes open, it seemed, you just might find something valuable in the most unlikely places. The trick was to recognize a good thing when you saw it, no matter how odd or worthless it might at first appear, no matter who else might just walk away and leave it behind” (37). This is the climax of Joe Rantz, he lives through the first ten years of his life in difficultly. Just when the reader thinks he reaches the point where he is mentally broken, Joe gets stronger not just physically but mentally by working and realizing that everything in life has value and purpose. An individual can feel intrigued because it is amazing how much people can preserve and stay focused on their goals with no set individual figure. Joe mentally motivates himself to work hard at his jobs and attending school. Anyone who reads about Joe sees this because he never gives up on anything no matter how hopeless his situation may be. As time passes, Joe is reunited with Harry and his step family. But it all goes

downhill when the United States economy caused farms to go out of business. Harry and Thula were forced to leave there farm told Joe he could not come. Joe was yet again stuck with the grief abandonment and loneliness. A painful feeling he had once experienced before, “He did not want to get up, did not really care if he ever got up. Finally though, he did get up. He made a fire in the woodstove, put water on to boil, fried some bacon, and made some coffee” (59). Already experiencing this he knew that was not what he wanted. Joe self-motived himself as “He opened his eyes and seized it, took it in, comprehended it all at once, and found that it came accompanied by a fierce determination, a sense of rising resolution. He was sick and tired of finding himself in this position – scared and hurt and abandoned and endlessly asking himself why. Whatever else came his way, he wasn’t going to let anything like this happen again. From now on, he would make his own way, find his own route to happiness, as his father had said… He wouldn’t be a hermit… He would survive, and he would do it on his own” (59). He shows perseverance by learning from his past hopeless situation and letting it self-motivate him. Individuals can compare to this because everyone has something worth fighting for. In this case, Joe is fighting for happiness, and he does this by persevering his obstacles no matter how hard they try to impact him.
To preserve, hard work needs to be executed.

Throughout his young life, Joe shows hard work, “Joe feasted on salmon that night, alone in the house. Then he set about turning the poaching of salmon into a business. Each Saturday afternoon Joe hiked the three miles into town with one or more enormous salmon sung of his shoulder,” (61). When fishing you need to patient, Joe’s hard work in fishing allows him to persevere his hunger situation as well as getting cash by selling the fish. Joe hard work allows him to overcome his obstacle of hunger and survival by taking the time to catch the fish, carry the fish three miles into town every Saturday by himself. Joe shows hard work in everything he does, he bettered his education by going Seattle for a year. Living with his brother Fred and Thula’s twin sister for schooling at Roosevelt High School. Joe worked hard to earn good grades so he could surmount the odds of attending a four year college. Joe received a card from the head crew coach at the University of Washington. This was Joe’s ticket into college, all his hard work from physical labor and grades constructed him to go against the odds of being hopeless to attending college. Later in the fall, he attended the University Washington and worked hard to stay in shape and make the row team. He was announced first-boat third seat. In chapter five Joe’s significant other’s mother read the paper stating “Joe Rantz Makes First Crew” (80). All of the hard work Joe Rantz did since

he was young led him up to this moment. He overcame obstacles and knew how much effort he had to do to persevere and survive to make his life how he wanted. An individual doing hard work supports persevere because you get what you receive.
Overviewing Joe Rantz’s childhood hardships and struggles he experienced shows perseverance affects who you become. Joe could have easily sat in the house lonely for the rest of his life. But he found a purpose and would not allow his tragic past tear him down. He adapted to situations, self-motivated himself, and put in the hard work. Daniel James Brown uses Joe Rantz young life because it exemplifies the meaning of perseverance. Rantz does not take pity on what suggests to be his hopeless situations but allows it to motivate him to become first team on the row team as a college freshman.