5. Describe at least one challenge faced by a character or individual in the written text. Explain how this challenge helped you to understand the character or individual.

Ricky struggles with Body Image and being judged for it and growing up with no parent figures that knew how to discipline him. He also has to deal with the death of is Aunt Bella

The novel Wild Pork and Watercress written by Barry Crump tells a story of a young overweight maori boy who is treated poorly by society and the social welfare system. Ricky goes from being insecure and weak to learning to accept his body and being self sufficient in the bush. Most of all Ricky discovers himself and his strengths and weaknesses.

One of Rickys biggest struggles was his body image and how the people of society ridiculed him for being a fat Maori boy. He was also labelled a slow learner even though he was an excellent reader also diminishing his self confidence. In the into to the book Ricky states ” I was abit overweight and not much good at sports and stuff”. A study conducted by Park Nicollet Melrose Centre shows that 34% of men are unhappy with their body and 80% for women. This shows how many people experience the same problem that Ricky experienced and made us understand how damaging it was for him due to the fact a high percentage of readers had also gone through body image issues. I think that because of the unrealistic standards social media and society sets people don’t see themselves as being skinny or muscular enough. To help reduce these high percentages of people not feeling have happy in their body I believe the idea of using models that are all sizes is a good idea that designers should incorporate into their industry.

Another challenge that Ricky faced was growing up with no father until he went to live with Bella and Hec who acted as parent figures and straightened him out. Before he went to live on the farm he lived in the city with his mother and stepfather where his stepfather wasn’t Rickys biggest fan and his mother couldn’t deal with him. With no guidance on how to properly act Ricky didn’t have any direction or discipline in life. He quotes ” things got worse at home until in the end my mother couldn’t handle me”. I think this shows that with an alcoholic father, a mother who didn’t know how to control him and a stepfather who felt it wasn’t his place to discipline him, Ricky got away with many things. We understand his character because many kids spend their childhoods looking up to their parents and because of the reality that Ricky didn’t have that, we can imagine how tough it would be on him.

After finally being accepted into a loving family and thriving in the county the death of his Aunty Bella would of blown his world apart. Just as Ricky was settling in and starting to really enjoy a disciplined healthy life his Aunty Bella died from a stroke. ” I don’t know about Uncle Hec, but I couldn’t see across the gap Aunty Bella left in our lives”. I think this sentence makes us understand Ricky and his decision to go into the bush for months after the death of Bella. The emotional distress this would of caused Ricky shows he’s not this horrible kid with no heart that just goes around breaking the law but actually a kind boy that just happened to get caught up doing the wrong things.

Throughout the story Ricky faces many challenges, changing his personality dramatically. Ricky dealt with body image, growing up part of his life with no parent figure to discipline him and living through the death of his Aunt Bella. These obstacles that he overcome helped us understand why he acted out by breaking the law when he was younger and how he developed into a sensitive smartly who managed to survive in the bush for over a year. I think major life experiences shape people and their personalities so to face all the issues Ricky did and still turn out as a good person shows how strong he was.