In the book "Looking for Alibrandi" there are many characters that show personal courage. John Barton, Josephine Alibrandi and Nonna Katia are the three characters that this essay focuses on. They all show some form of personal courage to live their lives the way they did in this book.
John Barton had a lot of stress put on him. He was expected to live up to the family's standards of profession, which meant he had to become a politician. "My father is a politician, my grandfather was a politician and my great grandfather was a backer of the first Liberal Prime Minister." (John to Josephine, page 45) It took a lot of personal courage from John to be able to take his life and not live up to these expectations. The courage was probably not used in its wisest form and should have instead been used to move though life.
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Courage Under Fire
English: The American Courage ship passing under t...John was also very stressed out by the HSC. He had had enough of always having to do his best because it was expected of him. It also seemed that John thought he didn't earn a lot of what he had. He was only given it because he was a Barton. "Do you think they voted me school captain because they wanted me? Get real. They knew I was going to be school captain in Year 7 because every other Barton had been one." (John to Josephine, page 46) It was more low self-esteem than personal courage that made John admit to the above quote. John clearly had to use some sort of personal courage to make the decision of whether to swallow the pills or not and to put his family through the stress of his death. There were clearly other paths he could have taken, but...