Running Brave Reflection 2

            As the story continues, Billy Mills faces even more obstacles throughout his journeys. Even though the team keeps winning the races, the coach is not satisfied with Billy’s performance because he believes that he has more in him that what is displayed on the track.  Thanks to this, Billy loses his love for running and become nothing more than a machine made for winning and little else. This in turn creates a new internal journey for our main character where he has to deal with the issues that competitiveness brings on an athlete. His girlfriend, Pat, keeps him centered and shows him support, but he is faced with her family’s bigoted views of Native Americans.  This proves to become a recurring problem he has to confront throughout the course of his internal and external journey. When he is invited to a fraternity for a party, he is quickly dismissed and rejected from the place for being an Indian by the leader.  His friends try to defend him, but he does not want anything to do with such a racist club. 

            After writing to his sister describing the many challenges he is facing and announcing his engagement to Pat, his family decides to visit him at his fiancée’s house.  The inevitable happens: his family feels completely out of place because of their own prejudices. This occurrence quickly turns violent since Eddie keeps insulting Billy’s new way of life and ignites a physical response from him. Here, we can see how his internal and external journeys collide and spark a new conflict with the people he cares about. After this event, our protagonist becomes solemn and starts losing constantly at his races telling his sister that he feels like he keeps falling down. He quickly reaches a point of no return and decides to quit racing and return home, leaving behind his new life for the old, and safe one by going backwards on his external and internal journeys. 

            Once he is reestablished in the reservation, he notices how everybody cared and believed in him to succeed outside of that place since they have failed.  His uncle, Frank, is an alcoholic, but seems to be the wisest of them all when he tells Billy that he should go back and keep trying since he could not amount to anything and he believed that Billy had it in him to succeed.  Billy dismisses these words and seems oblivious to the fact that people put their hopes and dreams on him as their avatar.  It took his uncle’s suicide to jump-start Billy’s desire and passion for running.  Through hardship and suffering, Billy straightened out his path and resumed his journey.

Running Brave Reflection

            Billy Mills, the main character in the movie, is of Native American and White origins. From the very beginning of the movie it is clear that our protagonist lives in poverty and struggles with the hardships of daily life. As a narrator to the story, Billy tells us that his father taught him about the ways of the heart while his uncle taught him how to use his legs for running. In a flashback to his childhood, the root of Billy’s internal journey throughout the movie is presented: Native American in a White society. Later on in this flashback, a second, more saddening, journey begins with the death of his father.
            A young boy, living in a harsh world, is faced with one of life’s toughest realities: death. Such an abrupt occurrence at a young age becomes engraved in mind and it is shown when he is older and reminisces about his father with sadness in his eyes. Later, we can see Billy competing in a cross-country race, which he wins, while a scout from Kansas State University was watching. After he finished, he convinced the scout that he would give it his all if given the chance to prove to him that his preconceptions about Native American athletes are incorrect. This blatant discrimination is a clear representation of our protagonist’s internal journey as he faces a world in which society’s view of his roots conflicts with his dreams. This turns into an external journey as well since he will often clash with people who look at him with eyes full of judgment. When the scout accepts, we see the beginning of the biggest journey our character shall face: traveling to an unknown place filled with unknown people.  

           Once training starts, we can see a new internal journey in our character, as he sees running as a form of freedom and happiness instead of a competition.  This of course goes against the reason his coach wanted him, so Billy is forced to change his ways and transform into a fierce competitor.  In this light we can see how both of his journeys intertwine: by traveling to a distant and unfamiliar place, Billy must face new and more difficult psychological challenges.  He is faced with tougher study material to which he is not accustomed and keeps in mind that he wants and needs to make his family proud.  In essence, Billy’s journeys are filled with hardship and obstacles he must face in order to reach his destination.