In the Cremation of Sam Mcgee, Sam asks his friend to cremate him. This is a very strange challenging request, but his friend, Cap decides to do it anyway. Similarly, in New Dirrections, Annie Johnson is facing disatififaction in her marrige and decides to step off the road and cut a new path. So, she has to take care of her two small boys with very little money, a very challenging decison and task. Likewise, in Rikki-Tikki-Tavi the main characters also take on very difficult challenges such as, when the mongoose is brought to someone’s house to protect the family from snakes. All three characters face challenges to achieve very difficult goals because they want to protect or show their love for their loved ones.
Sam McGee
The cremation of Sam McGee by Robert W. Service is in the poetry collection Song of a Sourdough, “The Cremation of Sam McGee” was the most popular poem Robert Service has made. This poem paints a vibrant picture of the characters and setting of the Klondike Gold Rush in Canada and Alaska at the end of the 19th century. The author describes when Sam thought he was going to freeze to death on the trail. Since Sam hates the cold and doesn’t want to be buried in the frozen ground, he asks Cap to cremate him. This was a very difficult request. Cap was very challenged by this and states, “Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code. In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.”(Service 42) It is clear that Cap is having a hard time fulfilling his promise to cremate Sam, but he reaasures himself by saying a promise is a promise because he loved his friend and wanted to meet his last wishes.
Annie Johnson
New Directions by Maya Angelou is a biographical essay about her grandmother, Annie Johnson. When Annie Johnson's marriage ends in 1903, she realizes that she must work in order to support her two small boys. She gets a divorce and is not able to financially support her sons. She looks for a job but is unable to find one. She then decides to start her own business making meat pies for the workers at the cotton gin. The author describes how Annie worked tirelessly to create a new life for herself and her boys. “That same night she worked into the early hours boiling chicken and frying ham. She mad dough and filled the rolled-out pastry with meat. At last she went to sleep.”(Angelou 47) Although Annie’s goal of starting her life all over by getting a divorce was challenging, she chose a new path, which led to her creating a successful business, which helped support and protect her children.
Rikki Tikki Tavi
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling is one of the most famous stories from the jungle book, a collection of short stories published is 1894 by English author Rudyard Kipling. A mongoose named Rikki-tikki-tavi washes up on the doorstep of an English family's bungalow in Segowlee after a severe flood, and the family rescues him. Rikki-tikki becomes their pet mongoose, and his job is to protect the family from menacing cobras named Nag and Nagaina. Rikki-tikki narrowly avoids Nagaina's sneak attack and ends up killing a deadly brown snakeling named Karait. Later that night, Chuchundra informs Rikki-tikki that Nag plans on biting Teddy's father when he goes to the bathroom. Rikki-tikki patiently waits to attack the unsuspecting cobra and ends up killing Nag during a vicious struggle. This gives Teddy's father enough time to pull his son to safety as Nagaina races off with her last egg. Rikki-tikki follows Nagaina into her burrow and kills her during a difficult struggle. Rikki-tikki successfully defeated both cobras, and the garden is restored to a peaceful, calm environment. “Rikki-tikki, I led Nagaina towards the house, and she has gone into the veranda, and oh, come quickly, she means killing!”(Kipling71) Although it was very tough for Rikki-Tikki-Tavi to reach his goals of protecting his family from the cobras he stayed strong and managed to complete it.
In conclusion, Cap fulfills his goal of attempting to cremate Sam, Annie Johnson succeeded in making money to take care of her two little boys, and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi succeeds in taking care of and protecting his family from the cobras. Cap, Annie, and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi all faced very unique challenges, which they overcame through perseverance in order to reach their goals of protecting their loved ones.