How Does Cole Harper's Path To Change

A Different Path To Change

How much can a person take? How many obstacles does someone have to overcome to shape as a person? There is not one answer that can work for everyone. Not just focusing on the negative side is important as well. In Strangers by David A. Robertson, one is able to look into the life of the main character Cole Harper. On the surface- he is a teenage boy just living his life, yet looking just a little deeper into his life can help give some insight into what he has dealt with. At a very young age being faced with having to make tough decisions and go through traumatic events is not something most people talk about. It is given that people go through challenges throughout their life, yet the most vital part is how

Now imagine having to make a decision that determines who lives and who dies. Imagine being at school where you are to feel safe and having a tragic fire take place. This is just one of the many challenges Cole faces. In chapter seven, he goes over the traumatic event with a flashback. He goes over how he sees the children he dead, crushed or burned alive. When he is given the opportunity to save those who he cares about, he desperately replies, ¨ Anything please! I'll do anything to save her¨( Robertson 66). Cole is deemed both a hero and a villain in the book, in a typical “can not save everyone” scenario. He is resented for this action and hated by many. That is a lot of stress and tension in itself for a teenager to deal with, which he does admirably as shown further in the book. Rather than talking to someone about what he was grappling with, he chose to keep it to himself and deal with it alone. Everyone knows though that when hot pressure is put under a glass bottle, it would eventually shatter. While talking to his friends he is pushed to talk about why he chose to save them until he could not take it anymore and yelled, ¨ because you and Brady were the only ones alive, Eva! Okay? Everybody else was dead! I saw them all! (85). Understandably, his friends have no idea that he was keeping something so traumatic inside him without communicating that with them. As if that was not enough, he also has to witness

Cole was thrown challenges left and right, yet he walked out a better person than he was at the start and picked up good traits like looking out for others than just himself. There are tough decisions he makes that he still has to live with, nevertheless he flipped something in his past that could be looked at as negative into something admirable and that is important just on its own. Realizing that he had people who cared about him and supported him gives Cole that extra boost of confidence that lets him make decisions his older self would not have made. Even though growth might look different to others, what really matters is the journey and the effort it takes to be at a pivotal point in an individual's life where they can tell that they have grown as a