AP Prompt Essay #3

Complimenting Conflictions

            The clash of desires that Jeanette Winterson’s main character, Jack, faces in her book The Battle of the Sun shows how prioritizing affects decision making, and how dissimilar desires can culminate into a forced maturation of the young and innocent.

            Jack travels down a hero’s path from the beginning. He starts out as an average kid on his way home for a birthday surprise. All of a sudden he gets kidnapped and his whole world is flipped inside out. He has to discover why he has been kidnapped, decide what his next plan of action is going to be and act on his decision. The most difficult part of his journey isn’t finding out who his captor is, or why he took Jack, but instead deciding on how he wants to take action. He must decide to either submit to his captor, the Magus, by handing over his power and in turn punish the whole town of London, or fight against the Magus to save London from being turned to gold by the combination of his and the Magus' power. The decision would be easy if it weren’t for the fact that when Jack’s mother realized Jack was gone, she went after him. When she arrives, the Magus knows immediately who she was and uses her to force Jack on his side. The Magus tells Jack, “When you become my true assistant, when you serve me as I require . . . on that day and no other, your mother will be freed to life . . . your mother’s life is for you to keep or to lose!”  (101-102). Jack knows that the Magus is not bluffing, but he wonders if there is a third option, one that doesn’t involve giving the Magus his powers or losing his mother, one where he can defeat the Magus and save his mother.

            While Jack is trying to come up with a way to escape, he begins to search his place of captivity; “The Dark House” (Winterson 19). The Dark House has two main areas, the room where the boys work, " . . . warm, and the only place that was not grey . . ." and the rest of the house, " . . .dark . . . [where the boys eat] silent fearful seven o'clock breakfasts after [a] long tramp down and down the stairs . . ." (Winterson 39). In a room buried deep within the house Jack finds a man who used to be the Magus’ mentor; his name is the Sunken King. The Sunken King tells him that there is a dragon guarding the house, if Jack can go to it and bargain with it he will be able to save the Sunken King from his impending death. To get the dragon to agree to help Jack, Jack must first acquire, and give the dragon, the Cinnabar Egg. On his way back from getting the egg Jack runs into one of the Magus’ servants and the servant demands Jack to give him the egg. Instead of giving the servant the egg, Jack gives him a coconut, so that he can keep his bargain with the dragon, and the servant, having been tricked, agrees to free Jack and his mother in return for the egg.

            During the final major scene of the novel Jack battles the Magus. At this point he has escaped from the Magus with his mother, saved one other little boy that was being held captive and, unfortunately, given the Magus his power. The Magus has turned the city of London into gold and Jack only has one more chance to save it. The moment Jack begins to understand his own potential he says, "'The Queen is right, I must claim my own power.'" (Winterson343) His maturity gives him the strength to refute the Magus' last attempt to sway his beliefs. He proves when he tells the Magus, "'You will never rule me . . . I would die first.'" (Winterson 351). When the battle is won he realizes he chose the right option; the third option. If he had settled for one of the choices provided to him by the Magus he would have lost something dear to him, whether it was the quaint city of London or his own mother. His maturation gave him the courage to battle against the Magus' dark ways, and led to the option that conquered all evil.