52 pages • 1 hour read
Bryce CourtenayThe Power of One
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1989A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Genre Context: The Bildungsroman
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses racism, racist violence, and the Holocaust.
The Power of One is a Bildungsroman: a novel of becoming. The Bildungsroman is a literary genre that follows the social and moral development of a protagonist from childhood to adulthood, demonstrating their process of maturation from innocence to experience as the character learns to integrate into society. Adolescent protagonists who are frustrated by seemingly arbitrary and illogical rules or cultural norms are a common feature of the genre. Memoirs are often examples of the Bildungsroman, but the genre is not limited to either non-fiction or fiction. Additionally, there are several sub-genres of the Bildungsroman including the Entwicklungsroman, or a novel that depicts the growth of the main protagonist without transitioning into adulthood, and the Küntslerroman, a novel that depicts the development of an artist.
In The Power of One, Peekay’s experiences are set against the long history of racism that establishes Apartheid rule: the minority rule of the white population through institutionalized racial segregation in South Africa and Namibia from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. Peekay navigates the social complexities of race and power during this period. As he grows, the biases that Peekay encounters in characters such as Hoppie Groenewald, Sergeant Smit, and Morrie Levy illustrate the arbitrary nature of the social stratification in the region. Characters such as Geel Piet teach the protagonist to navigate the complexities that make up the social hierarchy through careful observation and analysis. Peekay determines the value of maneuvering within the system through diplomacy, for example. He also learns to work around the system to achieve his goals and survive. Peekay’s observations about race relations and racism and experiences with moral and ethical abuses initiate his individual character growth.
In this Bildungsroman, Bryce Courtenay uses the first-person perspective to emphasize the changes that develop as Peekay gains knowledge of the world through experience. For example, Peekay notes of his time as a child that he “had no idea that South Africa was on England’s side” and that “while [he] knew [himself] to be English, [he] regarded this as [his] misfortune, like being born into a poor and degenerate family” (42). Many of the characters from Peekay’s earliest experiences regard his naivete or social ignorance as stupidity, though it represents the confusion that results from his status as both a child and an outsider among Afrikaner people. For example, he easily accepts the proclamation by the Judge that “Adolf Hitler is the king of Germany and God has sent him to take South Africa back from England” (31). He instinctively assumes the older, wiser student must be speaking the truth. He also demonstrates the same excitement as his Afrikaner peers in response to the Judge’s announcement. The Judge shatters Peekay’s trusting acceptance and crushes the Peekay’s childish wonder. Since Peekay narrates the novel as an adult, he offers sardonic asides that point out his early inexperience and provide additional context of which young Peekay is unaware. This juxtaposition allows readers to have a constant comparison between younger and adult Peekay to trace his development, or “becoming,” through the whole novel.
Historical Context: Race and War in South Africa
The Power of One is historical fiction set in South Africa between 1939 and 1951, and the novel’s historical context shapes the novel. As the only English-speaking boy attending an Afrikaans boarding school, the protagonist is positioned as an outsider in a hostile environment. The British Empire overthrew the Dutch in Southern Africa after the Dutch East India Company colonized the Cape in the mid-17th century. After centuries of tension, the Boers (descendants of Dutch-speaking settlers) won the First Boer War (1880-81), resulting in the establishment of the South African Republic. However, the Second Boer War (1899-1902) saw a British victory and resulted in the establishment of British colonies; the British army committed many war crimes and there was much international outcry. As well as “Pisskop,” Peekay gets called “rooinek” by other students, a nickname for British soldiers in the Second Boer War. This speaks to the ongoing hostilities that exist between the English and the Afrikaners or Boers during the period between the Second Boer War and South Africa’s joining World War II between 1939 and 1945. The slur that Judge uses to refer to Peekay illustrates his disdain for Peekay. Though, he eventually adopts the name Peekay, the narrator never gives his real name. Instead, he embraces a version of the slur given to him at the beginning of the novel as a symbol of his triumph over his exclusion. The novel therefore aligns Peekay with marginalized groups in South Africa although Peekay has privilege as a white, English-speaking boy.
Peekay’s experiences in the Afrikaans boarding school illustrate the tensions between the English and Boers in South Africa, but the purpose behind this is to illustrate the developing relations that led to Apartheid. The Herenidge Nasionale Party (the National Party) that assumed power just after World War II and instituted Apartheid represented Afrikaner nationalists who wanted stricter segregation. Peekay is often confused by (though also unconsciously enacts) institutionalized racism and frequently calls attention to illogical prejudices. Throughout the novel, Courtenay explores the continuing cycles of oppression and racism in South Africa due to a history of war and colonization. Inkosi-Inkosikazi is characterized as a powerful and majestic but desperately weakened Chief. He is “the last son of the great Dingann, the Zulu king who fought both the Boers and the British to a standstill” (10). Yet he is also a “small, wizened black man [. . .] dressed in a mismatched suit” that must be helped from his car (10). The incongruity of this description illustrates the rising and falling tides of “the People,” or the indigenous tribal cultures of South Africa. The disdain that the Judge and other Afrikaner characters demonstrate for Black people in South African society stems from the early colonization of South Africa by the Dutch, while the animosity between the Judge and Peekay stems from the Second Boer War.
Peekay acknowledges the logical foundations of the Judge’s hatred of the British. He references atrocities committed by the British during the Second Boer War, including interning many Afrikaners in concentrations camps with brutal conditions that later inspired the Nazi concentration camps of Germany (McMichael, Christopher. “A History of South African Nazis.” New Frame, 20 Jul. 2021). The Judge warns Peekay that “when Hitler comes [his] days are numbered” (24). When Harry Crown is kind and friendly to Peekay at his shop, Mevrou angrily shouts that “[he] is not a Boer child. He is a rooinek” (57), suggesting that she views Peekay’s English heritage as oppressive. However, Peekay struggles to understand the reasoning behind the Afrikaner prejudice against Black people, who suffered under both Dutch and British colonization and rule. This contrast establishes racism as unjustifiable while acknowledging historical injustices.
