Anna

Anna Holt
Mr. Salsich
4/8/2009
English 9A

Light of Bravery;

The Courage to Live


As she collapsed onto the tile floor, her body dissolved (FAST) in a river of tears. Fear ripped through her skin, scraping the troubled confines of her soul. Darkness. (Fragment) The sound of her breath echoed into the screaming silence around her, and for a moment, as she heaved and wallowed (FAST) in the murky waters of loss, the agony defeated her (loose sentence). We all will be faced with moments such as this in our lives, however, rest assured that a momentary surrender to pain will not last. We will pull from our pockets a shimmering light that we have saved for a moment like this, and this light will save us (Antithesis). Courage is our guardian.

In Anne Sexton's poem "Courage," she speaks of audacity in terms of simple and forgotten moments, but her greater meaning lies in the idea that courage is equivalent to strength. In the third stanza, Sexton advises that we show courage by, "giving [despair] a back rub." She is suggesting that it is courageous to nurture our troubles. Courage is present when one shows the strength to accept their sorrow and to fight through the rockier passages of time. In her closing line, Ms. Sexton suggests that when we are greeted by the inevitable guest of death, we will, "put on [our] carpet slippers and stride out [of life]." She suggests that we die with dignity; with power and with control. Sexton feels that courage is represented most acutely in strength. Her poem implies that the cushier parts of life are simple, lacking the need for such a bold characteristic as bravery. She suggests that love, for example, is "simple as saving soap." She does not identify a relation between love, which is recognized by many as the most powerful of all gifts of mankind, and courage. Perhaps she is correct. Perhaps for some, courage is represented most purely in strength itself.

Personally, I disagree with Ms. Sexton's views on this topic. While this characteristic is undoubtedly linked with strength, I feel that courage is a phenomenon all its own. It is a mix of personal morals and admirable (FAST) motives, and most importantly, it is unique to each human being on this earth. It is the layer of us that shows through when we let go of a strong facade or correct a wrongdoing. Courage is independence. Self-empowerment and decision making are the building blocks of bravery, for there is nothing more difficult than holding your own in a world of skeptical eyes and contradictory expectations. Courage is making the "first step, as awesome as an earthquake" in the life-long journey of individuality. Perhaps most importantly, to have courage is to have a smile. It is this smile, pure and defiant, that will bring you the bravery that life requires. Courage is the ability to smile freely and to love passionately and to care deeply at the moment when the very core of hate is hurled in your direction. (Polysyndeton) Courage is more than Ms. Sexton suggests. It is more than strength.

Life is hard. In our time on this earth, we will chart unknown waters and we will make mistakes. We will find ourselves lost, confused, and scared in an ocean of darkness. There are times when we will look out ahead of us and see that the road of struggling seems to stretch on for miles, multiplying like a folded silk. However, we will not give in. We will shake the right hand of fear. We will look it in the eye and fly above its wickedness with freedom. We will have the courage to live.