The Red Kayak And Peekay In The Power Of One

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The Impact of Choices Choices and the consequences these choices have can be monumental. Throughout the year in eighth grade English, the novels we have read have had choices as a central theme. “Life is about choices. Some we regret, some we’re proud of. Some will haunt us forever.” This quote from Graham Brown perfectly illustrates how important choices are. They can have a big effect on people and us around us. While some people don’t immediately think of choices being a central theme in a novel, they are wildly important. In the books we read this year, the choices made by Brady in The Red Kayak and Peekay in The Power of One had a phenomenal impact on themselves, the other characters in the novels, and even me as the reader. In …show more content…

While some things, such as being forced to go to boarding school at five years old, were out of his control, many other things in his life were not. Unlike Brady, Peekay does not have one choice that stands out. Peekay makes multiple choices that add up to change his childhood. The first choice that affected Peekay was to bring a kaffir chicken, named Granpa Chook, to boarding school. Granpa Chook became Peekay's only friend and helped to ease the pain of being horrifically bullied. Peekay’s choice then affected him negatively when he had to go through the trauma of seeing his beloved chicken die. Peekay’s next big decision was to befriend Karl von Vollensteen who Peekay knew as Doc. This changed Peekay because Doc helped develop Peekay’s intelligence, academics, and taught Peekay to play the piano. Doc also gave Peekay a reason to go to the Barberton Prison. Where he made his next major decision, which was to take on boxing. This affected Peekay at the end of the book when he got his revenge on his childhood tormentor, The Judge. Doc also lead Peekay into getting into an excellent private school. After his school, he made his last big decision, which was choosing to work in the mines for a year to pay for his colledge. This event causes Peekay to make a friend and puts him in many life threatening situations. Because of this, his friend dies. Peekays decision to work in the mines also …show more content…

The impact of his decision had a tremendous impact on four families and many other people as well. The biggest impact his choices had on others is that his best friends were sentenced to nine months in forestry camp. This means they were set behind in their educations and forestry camp is not fun.Their families will have to be without their sons for the sentence time and possibly longer. This has a significant impact on JT’s family because his dad is in the hospital and he has to go away. This means they will have no one to help on the farm and will have to pay money to hire someone. Bray’s decision does get justice for the Di Angelos. His decision also puts a financial burden on his family because of the lawyer they had to hire. Brady’s decision also brings a media spotlight to Ben’s death. Last but not least, it changed the lives of everyone that went to the court hearing because it would have never happened without

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