Ava Bennison Ms. Krick English 8 12 March 2024 Courage Essay We’ve all felt it before. It creeps up inside of us and makes it hard to breathe. Fear is all around us. It’s a part of us, really. Fight, flight, or freeze. That’s what fear does to us. But there’s a point where people get tired of being victims of fear. The control that fear has over us must stop. So, no matter how fearful people feel, who knocks them down, people have to conquer and have the courage to stand up to the fear. At a school with no water, boys are assigned to go to a pump and carry it back. One day, Alma speaks up and asks why girls can’t do that as well. In “The Friday Everything Changes,” by Anne Hart, the actions are courageous because there is always fear, but people …show more content…
A good example of this is the novel “Inside Out and Back Again” by Thanhha Lai. The novel tells the story of a young Vietnamese girl, caught in the middle of the war in 1975. Há and her family of five escape from their lifelong home to go to America. With very little knowledge of English, she must fight her way through her new life in Alabama, even after her grueling journey to the country. With her father’s life lost in the war, her three older brothers and mother help motivate Há to stand up to obstacles that she’s been facing, along with some new friends they made along the way. While trying to escape Vietnam and get onto navy ships, the family is caught in the crowd of thousands of other families trying to escape and Há can’t see anything. Fortunately, we read that, “Brother Vu steps up, placing Mother in front of him and lifting me onto his shoulders. His palms press Brothers Quang and Khoi forward” (Lai 61-62). In all the commotion for freedom, Há’s brother helps and motivates the family to keep going. They keep the courage to continue to the boat, where they stay and starve for a month before finally arriving at the refugee camp. There, Há’s mother picks the US to start their new