What courage brings in modern children’s fiction

Essay by emcheungUniversity, Bachelor'sA, November 2014

download word file, 4 pages 0.0

Cheung 1

Cheung Ka Weng 14102524

Dr Coralline Dupuy

ENG 3106

5th October, 2014

What courage brings in modern children's fiction

The word "courage" in French and Latin words means "heart". The heart is the organ that pumps blood to our arms and legs and other organs, courage is the virtue that vitalizes all other virtues. For a hero to win a battle against villains, he always needs courage. The typical prizes for him is marrying the princess and ascending the throne. However, in the two fiction The Witches and Holes, the qualities incarnated by the protagonists (heroes) is more than just courage, and what they gain is no longer a princess or the throne, but something more valuable to oneself.

The Witches reinforces the long-lived notion that as long as a child holds righteous beliefs and has courage with him, he can beat down devils and villains. Courage comes from the ones who love you and you love.

The story further redefines a happy ending - to live with your beloved ones instead of traditional happy wedding or ascending the throne.

If the protagonist (The Boy) is regarded as the hero of the story, his achievement of killing the witches is a much more difficult one for traditional heroes. The protagonist does not gain strength from the transformation; instead, he becomes physically weaker as a mouse. The boy and the witches are on complete binaries in terms of physical size (The Grand High Witch to The Boy as a mouse), amount (84 witches to The Boy and Grandmother), abilities (magical power to a normal mouse). Yet, with perseverance and faith, The Boy and Grandmother eventually kill all witches in England to prevent the children from being killed by adults. Despite The Boy and Grandma do no possess any super...