essay prep

Example Introduction

Have you ever experienced an event that changed your life? In (A) John Avildsen’s (T) ‘The Power of One’, (K) a moment that changes the main character PK’s life is when his beloved pet chicken ‘Mother Courage’ was strung up and killed by his schoolmates. (O) This is shown by the way PK loses not only his chicken, but his symbol of courage and friendship, his ability to not hold the actions of one against a whole race and how he learns to stand up to people who are bigger than him.            

Paragraph-

Statement Example Explain Link

Statement Example Xplain Xplain purpose (why did the director do it) Xplain the effect (how do we feel watching it) Your link- link to the statement, link to next paragraph, link to somewhere else in the film.

Pk loses his symbol of courage, family, guardian and his only friend in the school

Have you ever experienced an event that changed your life? In John Avildsen’s ‘The Power of One’, a moment that changes the main character PK’s life is when his beloved pet chicken ‘Mother Courage’ was strung up and killed by his schoolmates. The character of PK is developed by this incident because PK loses not only his chicken, but his symbol of courage and friendship. He also develops the ability to not hold the actions of one person against a whole race of people and to stand up to people who are bigger than him.    

When Pk’s chicken ‘Mother Courage’ is killed, PK loses his symbol of courage, his only remaining family and his only friend at school. In this scene, Borta the school bully tries to blame the English for the killing of Africanas families in concentration camps in South Africa. He claims that Hitler will punish the English for their actions, and that he will punish the English too, starting with PK by killing his chicken. He has the chicken strung up on a rope by its legs and kills it by firing a stone at its chest using a slingshot. The chicken, ‘Mother Courage’ was given to PK by the witch doctor as a guide to help him find his courage and overcome his bed wetting. Therefore, when the chicken is killed, PK’s symbol of courage is killed with it and PK will now have to be courageous on his own. PK had also lost his father and mother, so the chicken was the only family he had left when he went back to boarding school. In this way we see the character of PK change as he learns to live without family and friends, and find his own source of courage. This links to later in the film when his boxing coach Geel Piet is killed by a guard and PK once again loses his friends and family.  

{L}- In this way we see that PK has lost his symbol of courage, is only family and his friend.

(L)-In this way we see the character of PK change as he has to learn to live without family and friends, and find his own source of courage.

{L}- In this way we see the character of PK change as he learns to live without family and friends, and find his own source of courage. This links to later in the film when his boxing coach Geel Piet is killed by a guard and PK once again loses his friends and family.

Another way the character of PK is developed as a result of the death of his chicken is that he is able to forgive and not hold grudges against a whole race of people for the actions of a few. At this point in the film, we see that the Africana boys hold a grudge against all English because of the actions of some in the past. When they killed his chicken, PK could follow their example and hate all Africanas because of Borta and his friends, but he chooses to embrace people of different cultures and only blame the person for their actions not the race. The director includes this scene to let the audience know that PK as an English man will face difficulties from the Africanas throughout his life. This links to later in the film when PK wants to date Maria, but her father will not allow it because PK is English and Maria is an Africana. PK chooses to date her anyway, because he looks beyond a person's race.   

Conclusion- MIRROR- reflect the points of your essay.

The event that changed PK’s life was when his chicken ‘Mother Courage’ was killed by Borta and the Africana boys at his school. As a result of this incident PK had to learn to find his courage from within, to make new family and friends, to treat all peoples with respect regardless of their race, and to stand up for the things he believes in. In this way, we can see the importance of this scene in the overall film.