Peekay In John Steinbeck's The Power Of One

Little kids everywhere have imagined what they will become as they grow up; a doctor, a musician, a teacher. As an eighth grader, I’ve been given the opportunity to look in-depth at what careers I should consider. Through surveys I’ve learned about my more prominent skills, which has led me to the discovery of paths I should take as I draw closer to high school. As I continue to see my results and take a deeper look at my possible plan for the future, I hope to learn more about myself, discovering a career choice I haven’t considered before, and end up with a better understanding of who I want to be.

Growing up the main question a child is asked is, “What do you want to be when you grow up? “ , and most kids respond saying a doctor, lawyer, or a cop. In reality not everyone sticks to their first idea, and it’s slim that they actual start working in the chosen career. In my case, I have always wanted to work as a social worker or a therapist, but I realized it wasn’t in my budget. Therefore, I have decided; as well as, grew interest in being a dental assistant for a pediatric office.

Boxing, an official sanctioned sport in the early 20th century, is a sport that is known as one of the most violent and physically demanding sports on the earth. Professional boxers that get paid to fight must be in top shape in order to preform at the highest level. Being a professional boxer is a tough life. Boxers train hard for many months leading up to one fight and either win, lose, knock out the opponent or even get knocked out. The sport has been around for centuries, but has most recently taken off over the last 100 years. It is a multibillion dollar industry with fighters taking home hundreds of thousands of dollars if not even millions of dollars for big matches. In his novel Papa Jack, Roberts tells the story of the famous African American boxer Jack Johnson. He details the boxers rise to fame and fortune and his downward spiral that would soon follow. In Papa Jack, Roberts displays life of a professional boxer through firsthand accounts with events that happened during Johnson’s life and shows how boxing not only influenced his life but also how he influenced the African American community.

Think back to when you were five years old. Were you sent to a boarding school with kids a couple years older than you? Were you persecuted and bullied for being a “redneck” or for just being who you were? Chances are, the answer to these questions should be “no”. However, a small little boy growing up in Africa during the mid-1990s can probably describe every single tortuous day that he went through in this situation. His name is Peekay, and he is the narrator in Bryce Courtenay’s award-winning novel, The Power of One. Peekay describes his life form being a small five-year old boy to a teenager. Along the way, he meets many mentors and friends, such as Hoppie Groenewald, a champion boxer,

Throughout my life, I’ve wanted to be many things. An astronaut, a princess, a doctor, a lawyer, and at one point in my life the president. Now that I am older and much more mature. I still haven’t decided what I wanted to be. When I first started my high school career, I was terrified. I didn’t know what I wanted to be. So I decided to try new things. I’ve been with choir ever since I was in the sixth grade, so I thought I would give it shot, and try something new. I started to take drama and art. I soon found out, that I wasn’t great at either of those things. I had stage fright and I sucked at drawing. But, I didn’t give up. I stayed with choir, drama, art, and basketball. Now that I am a senior and ready to graduate, I have found out I

My interests and passions supplement my education in high school in a variety of ways. Show choir, musicals, plays, chorus, band, jazz band, and so much more allowed me to use my creativity everyday in multiple ways. All of these arts opportunities added to the excitement of coming to school, which naturally helped me succeed in my academic pursuits. Not only do I enjoy high school, but many weekend days have been spent waiting to go back to school so that I can sing again, or play my trumpet again, or just learn something really interesting.

As far back as I can remember, my days were spent filled with activities my mom planned to keep my siblings and I busy. From frequent zoo trips to weekly ballet lessons, every activity planned in our schedules had some sort of ulterior motive to shaping our future into the people our parents wanted us to become. While my brothers became interested in chemistry sets and robots, I was enrolled into dance classes, surrounded by animals, and spent days at work with my mother in the hospital in hopes of coaxing me out of my terribly shy shell and subconsciously breeding a veterinarian, or even better, a doctor. The older I became, the more my daily activities steered me in the direction of the medical field, I quickly learned to read the x-rays

In the future I plan to continue working on my company and my dream is to expand it beyond what I ever thought possible at 12 years old. In my House I have my sister Seville, my mom Susan, two dogs and a cat. My parents are divorced so my dad, David lives in another house with his wife Kattie. At his house we also have two dogs. My favorite subjects are Math & Science, as I seem to be a very logical minded person. I love being able to work with numbers and create experiments. After school I usually teach classes, and starting this next October I will be teaching kids at 5 different schools every day of the week. By the end of 2016, I will have taught over 580 students this year. In my free time I play video games and go out with my friends. I do not really listen to music but I do love to go out and watch movies with either my friends or family. My favorite kinds of movies are comedy and action movies. When I am older I want to travel the world, even though I kind of already do. Every summer we fly out of the country and visit new countries. This summer I took a cruise from Barcelona, Spain all around Europe. Looking at all the different cultures and how people live around the world is something that

As I was reading The Power of One, I noticed the influence Peekay’s early childhood had on the rest of his life. First, there’s his name. Initially, the Judge and Jury call Peekay pisskop as an insult, but soon everyone calls him “Pisskop”, even Mevrou. Peekay believes that “Pisskop” is his name, as he never learned his actual name. He is easily influenced by his peers.When Harry Crown asks him, “What is your name, boy”? he replies with “Pisskop, sir” (56). Harry Crown gives him his new name, Peekay, and it sticks.

As a child, I always thought that it was my assignment in life to become an attorney. At least that's what my parents said. But not me! I was always into the arts, singing; although I can't, dancing, producing mini shows, or whatever I could do to express myself creatively. Unfortunately my parents were not convinced that the arts would get me far in life, so they pushed me down the college track. Even the high school guidance counselors saw the leadership in me. Surely, she's going to college and becoming a lawyer. So I tried it. Although surrounded by the uncertainty, but these people have my best interest at heart so why not? Except when I got there, I was not passionate about it at all! There started this search of who am I and what is it

One of Peekay's aspirations is to become a breathtaking boxer. In the process of becoming so, he meets a lightweight boxing all-star, Hoppie, and learns a great deal about boxing that can translate into his life. Peekay describes Hoppies determination as, “He had given me the power of one--one idea, one heart, one mind, one plan, one determination. Hoppie had sensed my need to grow, my need to be assured that the world around me had not been specially arranged to bring about my undoing. He gave me a defense system, and with it he gave me hope”(103). In other words, Peekay now has proven to himself that he is not helpless. Knowing that there is a person who can relate to his struggles gives Peekay a confidence boost. Hoppie gave Peekay a reason to believe that there is a way to overcome his problematic size, which caused for bullying problems in the past. Although this can apply to the boxing ring,

Doc was influential to Peekay because he was the man who taught Peekay important life lessons, and Hoppie was a prominent character because he was the man who initially introduced Peekay to boxing. Geel Piet was and still is a very influential person in Peekay’s life. Even though Geel Piet was brutally murdered by Lieutenant Borman, Peekay still remembers his teachings to this day. Geel Piet was an influential figure because he was Peekay's boxing coach.

Looking back on my sophomore and junior years of high school, I had a very difference idea of how my life was going to turn out. I worked three days a week on my school’s radio station, WBMT, and played guitar during my free time. I was going to major in business and minor in communications and hopefully pursue some career in music production and management. From middle school until late high school, that was the way I was going to affect people, through music. While I had worked as a camp counselor, and had experience working with children, it just wasn’t a path that I thought I could turn into a career. As I grew up and had new experiences, I began to reevaluate my plans for myself.

    Names are a terrible way to understand someone’s identity because names are regularly replicated. In my sixth grade class, there were three Mollys. We all had different backgrounds, different religious affiliations, and different personalities. If our names displayed who we are, wouldn’t our identities all be the same? Instead of staring at names and trying to understand their meaning, one should focus on a person’s personality, for personality depicts our identity. In fact, I have learned from experience to not infer one’s identity based on their name. For instance, in middle school, I was mutual friends with a girl named Kassidy. One Tuesday afternoon, my friend, Katy told me that Kassidy was going to sit with us at lunch that day. I shrugged my shoulders and replied with a casual “okay”. Before Kassidy walked in, I had a whole image of her in my mind: blonde hair, cute pastel colored clothes, and religious, all stereotypes that I thought a person with an innocent name like Kassidy