Bridge to Terabithia Courage

Poor Jess. At May Belle's age he had larger ambitions than just being a runner, and his dad squashed them. This did more damage to Jess than his dad probably knew. Even though Jess still loved to draw, it became more of a secret thing, and even the encouragement of Miss Edmunds wasn't enough to get Jess to defy his father and be more open about it. It's his friendship with Leslie that helps him recapture that desire to make art.

Jess turns the tables on his frenemy Gary and accuses him of cowardice so that Leslie can compete in the race too. This shows us how the merest accusation of being fearful can be a powerful motivator. Nobody wants to look like a coward, and sometimes that makes people act foolishly instead of bravely. Here, though, it's definitely brave and right to let Leslie run in the race. We're all about equality, and hope you are too.

Here we have this really interesting connection of manliness to bravery. There's a stereotype here that "be[ing] a man" means not being a "coward." Jess compares himself unfavorably with Leslie, who he calls "some girl," because she's describing something he sees as brave because he'd be scared to do it himself. What Jess doesn't realize yet is that men get scared, too – and that's totally OK. Everyone does from time to time. He shouldn't be embarrassed about it – sometimes there are good reasons to listen to your fear and hesitate.

By calling Jess "yellow," May Belle means that he's a coward. (For more on why "yellow" has this connotation, check out the article about it on Stumblerz). Because she's so little, she can't fight this battle herself. The implication here is that if she were her own big brother (we know, that's confusing), she would beat people up for stealing a sibling's snack. Her anger doesn't let her see that there's no way Jess could successfully beat up a seventh grader.

Leslie gives Jess courage here, as she often does. As you can see with this quote, they take that courage into Terabithia to face their imaginary foes. Although the enemies are imaginary, they feel no less real. Jess and Leslie must arm themselves, remind themselves of their place as rulers, and defend their lands. They have the same kind of attitude inside Terabithia and as they do outside it.

Amazingly, Jess discovers that Leslie feels fear too. While this sounds a little bit like him heckling Gary from earlier in the book – about letting girls run races – the narrator specifies here that this has a different tone. Jess is so amazed that Leslie could feel "scared" that he inadvertently taunts her into going in and facing Janice. Where she'd often given him courage in the past, here he inspires it in her.

Although Jess compares his desire to "cling to the crab apple tree" to his baby sister "cling[ing] to Momma's skirt," which could be seen as a kind of put-down or negative – not very "manly" – it's actually pretty rational. Jess is right and Leslie is wrong, as later events unfortunately show. The creek is really dangerous. While courage and bravery seem positive and fear seems negative, too much courage can be worse than not having enough. Courage needs to be tempered with reason and rationality.

Jess worries that there's something wrong with him because of the amount of fear he feels – like he was born without the genetic code for bravery or something. Jess's feelings here are reminiscent of his complex concerns about getting Leslie the right Christmas present. He's not worried about how he'll appear to the world – he's being pushed by a powerful inner compulsion, which, in this case, is shame and upset-ness that he's afraid at all.

Here Jess is trying for a do-over, having an imaginary/dream conversation with Leslie in which he tries to alter the future and confess his fear to her, perhaps in order to alter the course of future events. Even though he worried so much about confessing his fear about going to Terabithia during the storm, he never got a chance to do it. We can see how he would blame himself for her death because of that. In this conversation, he tries to make that right by admitting his fear and what also seems like a little guilt.

Jess finally realizes that it's all right to "be scared," and tells May Belle that too. There are some circumstances that would scare everybody. Even though they're both afraid, that doesn't stop him from acting bravely. We could argue that he actually acts more bravely because he's determined to deal with the circumstances and overcome his fear.