The Rights To The Streets Of Memphis, And The Birds

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Eleanor Roosevelt said, "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'" Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. Having grace whilst under pressure is courage. A man without courage has no will or direction. In their respective stories "The Most Dangerous Game", "The Rights to the Streets of Memphis", and "The Birds", Richard Connell, Daphne du Maurier, and Richard Wright display the fear-facing courage of three quite different protagonists. In Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game," his protagonist, Rainsford, courageously goes from hunted, to the hunter. His resourceful thinking and hunting expertise saves his life. "The world is made up of two classes - the hunters and the huntees. Luckily you and I are hunters." He says. Rainsford constantly reminds himself to "keep his nerve" and just to survive. In du Maurier's story, her protagonist, Nat, has ex-military experience and knows how to survive in his deathly situation. While Nat and Rainsford are being pursued by the enemy, they…show more content…
His actions are both alarming and very intimidating, shouting words such as "I'll kill you!". Wright's fear of the neighborhood gang of boys is quickly overcome when his mother threatens to whip him if he does not return with groceries. Wright faces his fears by fighting back; flaying a stick at the boys, "stark fear" making him put every ounce of strength into each blow, even shouting at grown-ups. In Connell's autobiographical narrative and du Maurier's novelette, the characters over come fear in a life or death situation, rather than Wright's fear of neighborhood boys. All three stories involve overcoming a fear, just one not as fatal as the other

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