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The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind Analysis

Decent Essays

The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind tells the incredible true story of William Kamkwamba and his quest to bring electricity to his poor town in Africa. Although many help him throughout his journey, William is the main character and main protagonist of the book. Throughout the novel, he reflects on his adventures leading up to his creation of a windmill that powers parts of the town. In order to accomplish such a feat, William had to be hardworking, mature, and creative. William exhibits all of these qualities and many more to prove that he is the best thing that happened to Malawi during his lifetime. The novel takes place over the course of several year, so, at the start, we see William as a naive young boy. His town is largely ruled by the fear of magic, and, William himself says, “before i discovered science, magic ruled the world,” (Kamkwamba 3). However, as he started having encounters with “magic”, he realized that he couldn’t rely on it to take him where he wants to go in life. So, he started to mature. As a child, it’s very hard to come to terms with the fact that you have to own up to your mistakes. After being sold fake magic by his cousin and getting beat up for it, William realized that he had to stop acting like so much of a child and become a mature young adult. In addition to …show more content…

Because Malawi was so poor, William had to get creative. He never had access to a store that could conveniently give him all of the supplies that he needed. Instead, William used “old water pumps, tractor rims half the size of (his) body, filters, hoses, pipes, and plows” (Kamkwamba 176) to construct makeshift parts of his electrical endeavours. He built structures to hold his windmill together and remodeled his house to hold the wires and boxes that powered the lights. If not for his unconventional thinking and creative mentality, William would have never gotten the chance to change the lives of those around

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