English Literature -- Physical and Essay

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In the Vanderhaeghe story, the old man could have jeopardized his life and that of his horse just because he could not admit that he had injured himself.

The other element of courage illustrated by the story is particularly relevant to the stage of life of high school upperclassmen. By the time we are seventeen or eighteen years old, we are beginning to develop our own ideas about life and personal values. Sometimes, those ideas and values may not necessarily be the same as or even consistent with those of our parents. Joseph refers to the "difficulty of unlearning the things you were taught as a kid" and about his tendency to "backslide" in the "current" of his father's values, even as a middle-aged adult twenty years later. In Joseph's case, he has consciously rejected his father's definition of courage as something that necessarily (and maybe exclusively) relates to toughness, grit, and physical courage. Meanwhile, Joseph apparently agrees with his colleagues that courage is much more about moral values and convictions than it is about physical endurance which he regards as an impulse more appropriate for Neanderthals than for contemporary cerebral human beings.

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The story suggests that Joseph might be having difficulty fully accepting his personal definitions of courage because he cannot bring himself to fully reject his father's influence during his upbringing. That conflict parallels the experience of many of us, such as children born into racist families who learn why those sentiments are morally inappropriate. While rejecting the wrong ideas to which we were introduced by our parents may be the right thing to do on a conscious level, genuinely and fully achieving that intellectual independence in our lives can be extremely difficult. Given the lasting importance of our family relationships in most of our lives, that may indeed require a significant demonstration of genuine courage, although not likely the type that Joseph's father would recognize. In fact, it is the essence of personal integrity nurtured by courage......

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