Thursday, March 3, 2011

The Power of One: Chapter 18

1. Chapter 18: pages 379-385
2. In this chapter, Peekay returns home to Barberton at the end of his school term. He continued to fight with the Barberton Blues and continued his lessons with Doc. Peekay is back to his old schedule and it is just as busy as it used to be. Going from the prison, to Doc’s house, to Miss Bornstein’s house, Peekay was full of new lessons and ideas from his mentors. He compares what he learns at school to what Doc, Miss Bornstein, and Mrs. Boxall teach him at home. In the end, Peekay realizes that he misses Morrie and his friends at school and being able to just be a kid.
3)  a. Doc
b. “‘I cannot teach you what I cannot feel. Peekay, you must understand this. It is not possible for a man to touch the heart of the Negro man’s music when he cannot feel it through his fingers.’ Doc had just explained to me why I would never amount to much musically. What Geel Piet knew I had as a boxer, Doc knew I lacked as a musician.”
c. Doc is:
-Intelligent
-Courageous
-Honest
-Trustworthy
-Adventurous
-Loving
d. Doc’s role in the novel is to be a friend, teacher, and mentor to Peekay. He is one of the only mentors of Peekay that has been around for a long time. Ever since he was young, Peekay loved Doc and looked up to him. Doc teaches Peekay how to play the piano and constantly gives him intellectual insight. Just like Hoppie, Doc reminds Peekay when to play his music with his head and when to play with his heart, “‘But to play black, the music must come from your soul, not out from your head, Peekay.” Peekay spends a lot of time with Doc, and their relationship is like that of a father and son. 
4. “I was beginning to understand how intellect separates men.” This line stood out to me because it is another one of Peekay’s realizations about life. He had said this when he noticed how different people act based on how they were raised and how they live their life. Around certain people, Peekay saw that he talked about different things with all of the different groups of people he was associated with. When he was with Miss Bornstein and his other teachers, Peekay found himself always speaking intellectually; with his friends, Peekay did not have to worry or about how correctly he spoke. This is related to how Morrie said, “Good conversational debate is an end in itself, and talking for the love of conversation is what makes us human.”

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