“Courage is the commitment to begin without any guarantee of success.” This quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe is a great representation of the acts of courage in the book ‘Peace Like a River’ by Leif Enger. In my book, Jeremiah and Davy both show acts of courage throughout the book. These are all very important acts of courage in the book and without them, the book would have been completely different.
First, let me talk about the miracles in the book. The miracles that are performed mainly by Jeremiah, are a big part of the book. As I was reading, I was noticing that all of the miracles had some act of courage involving it. Right at the beginning of the book the author starts off with an act of courage. Reuben, the main character
…show more content…
It may seem weird that I am putting this as an act of courage because murders aren't usually put into the category of “doing the right thing” but in the case of Davy and his family, I believe that he did the right thing. I thought he did the right thing because Israel and Tommy would never have given up. Tommy and Israel one day were trying to rape Davy's girlfriend. Davy's dad, Jeremiah happened to be cleaning the area because he is the janitor for the school and spots them. Of course, he does something about this. Telling them to stop and standing up for Dolly, the girl who was raped, Israel and Tommy threaten that they are coming after Jeremiah and his family. Unfortunately, they were not lying. They perform multiple serious crimes including tarring their door, kidnapping Reubens sister for a short period and finally, breaking into their house with a baseball bat in the middle of the night. This was the last straw for Davy. After all, that they had done to Jeremiah, Reuben, Swede and Davy, and considering the police have barely been involved, he has to use self defense because now he feels like no one is on his side. That is when he kills