The Effects Of A Strong Family In Scott O Dell's Black Star: Bright Dawn
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Without a doubt, family plays a huge part in everyone’s lives. The effects of a strong family are shown by Scott O’Dell in Black Star, Bright Dawn. Through the eyes of Bright Dawn, her family manages to guide her ultimate journey by giving her a strong understanding of what family is with their genuine examples of trust, encouragement, and the unlimited care they have for one another.
The way Bright Dawn and her parents put all of their trust in each other is quite obvious. When her father, Bartok, goes missing on the ice, Bright Dawn returns home and immediately practices an Eskimo custom which Bartok had told her about: “If a rope goes limp, my father had told me, it’s a sign that the hunter is in danger. If it goes limp more than a little, if it hangs down, then the hunter is dead” (10). Not giving a single doubt about her father’s beliefs, she trusted her father’s wisdom and hoped for his safety. Later on, when her father is injured whilst practicing for the Iditarod race and is unable to participate, he recommends that his own daughter should run in place of him…show more content… Even from the start, Bright Dawn’s mother was worried and scared for her daughter being in the Iditarod race (30) and when Bright Dawn reached the checkpoint in Ikuma, her mother had prepared her a huge feast for her to indulge in (76). After Bright Dawn had left Ikuma and got stuck on the ice, it is her own father that comes to save her (90). This is an incredible moment of the story due to the fact that Bartok has a phobia of water (16). So, no matter how afraid Bartok was of the water, he didn’t hesitate to save his only daughter. Bright Dawn, too, cares deeply for her family and their satisfaction, for she reassured her father that she would always embrace Eskimo culture rather than completely assimilate into Western culture instead (94). They may have been a small family, but they cared deeply for each