Boys In The Boat Sparknotes

Self reliance is the ability to depend on oneself to meet human needs to survive. In the book, the boys in The Boat, by Daniel James Brown, Joe Rantz began relying on himself from the day his family abandoned him at a very young age. He learned how to keep himself fed and clean. At the same time, manage to keep his grades up and partake in his school's rowing crew. Joe is a responsible, self reliant, and hard working boy who overcame many hardships in his life. Joe Rantz was forced to become self reliant when his father, step-mother, and siblings left him. At a very young age, Joe lost his mother to throat cancer. Harry, Joe’s father remarried to a woman named Thula. As it usually goes, they had multiple children. Thula didn’t like the idea that Harry was married previously and had children with his previous wife. Joe was a constant reminder of his previous marriage and she was jealous, therefore, she said it was either her or Joe. It was obviously a difficult …show more content…
I’m sure this was difficult for Joe, especially in the beginning. There wasn’t anybody to help him out when everything was hard. He was forced to learn how to do everything for himself. Taking on that kind of responsibility at such a young age couldn’t have been easy for anyone. This type of self -care and independence made Joe very independent, to the point where it had become uncomfortable for Joe to even ask for help or depending on someone but himself. Throughout his childhood, he was alone and had nobody to rely on which became a reality. The author writes, “For Joe, who had spent the last six years doggedly making his own way in the world, who had forged his identity on stoic self-reliance, nothing was more frightening than allowing himself to depend on others”. (Brown 237). His family let him down multiple times by leaving him, so he began to become entirely