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Character Analysis: The Boys In The Boat

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The Boys in the Boat Essay In the book The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown the main theme is overcoming difficult odds. This theme is shown clearly at many points in the book. A great quote to show this is “He went back upstairs and told his son he would have to move out of the house. Joe was 10.” This quote shows how even very early on Joe’s life was difficult. When his mom died his dad got remarried to a new woman. This woman hated Joe. One day, the mom had enough. Joe went to live on top of the schoolhouse. He worked around town in exchange for food and other items. This is just the beginning of his internal and external struggles. In the Olympic race for gold, the British and the Americans got off to a bad start expressed in the following quote, “The Husky Clipper, for a horrific moment, sat motionless at the line, …show more content…
In the past they were the best and just had to give it their all to win. Now, they were racing against the best in the world. They had to race again the home country and they got a horrible lane position. They got position six with is closest to the open water and it is very wavy and unpredictable out there. They thought they were going to get lane one because every time previously, in Olympic races, the boat with the fastest qualifying time got the best lane position. The Germans this year came up with a new rule that now the lane one was a handicap for the slowest boat. Coincidentally, it was their boat and in lane two their close allies the Italians. The US coach was very unhappy about this because he had never heard of this new rule. It put the British and American teams at an unfair disadvantage. In addition, for a few days now one of the American’s best guys had been very sick. Al. the American’s coach, wanted to get another rower, but his crew mates wanted him there. They said even if they had to pull him across the finish line, they would gladly do

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