Ryan+L

TWTWB assignment I think that the group needed to take on some action and try to inflict some damage on the enemy. They thought that trying to go in and rescue there family’s was too tough; even know they had a few guns it would be too hard. I don’t think that they could sit around and do nothing for the rest of their lives either. Homer was very smart when he came up with the idea of how to blow the bridge up. They first looked at the vital things that mattered to the enemy, and instantly they thought of the road out of Wirrawee. Trying to blow up the bridge would be a very beneficial and smart thing to do, if I did it cautiously, and just like Ellie, I would make “calm and logical decisions.” Murder is horrible thing to do, but people today believe that murder in war is ok. I believe that we should try to avoid it if possible. In the Novel ‘Tomorrow When the War Began’ Ellie blew up a bridge and didn’t kill anyone, but even if she did it wouldn’t be frowned upon by her friends. She did ‘what was necessary’ to complete their task. War is no small matter. People kill other people all the time. Most do not think about whom the person is that they are killing. Most people don’t realise that some of those people have a family and friends, and that they are not much different from you. Both people are just fighting for their country and what they believe is right.
 * Tomorrow when the war began **
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People should be able to be treated at any hospital no-matter who they are, what they have done and what will happen to them in the future. It is highly likely that whether the enemy treats corries wounds or not, Kevin and Corrie will be rounded up and put in the showground like the rest of the people. In prisons today we have hospitals to treat wounded prisoners. Even if they have murdered someone they can still get help. It would be un-humane to let them stay in pain and maybe die, but the prisoner would get put back in prison once they have received medical help. Robyn ‘could understand’ why the enemy had invaded, but to her and her friends it all still seemed unfair. The enemy’s country could have been poor and overpopulated and had a hard time, and look over to Australia and see that Australia is thriving and having a great life. Naturally they would get a little ‘jealous’ of our country, even though that Australia try’s to help out all around the world. The book suggests that the invading country might be Indonesia, and because that Australia is so close to Indonesia we would be easy to invade. Making a role reversal between Australia and the invading country is not fair at all, and it may be worse than what Australia was like in the first place. In a few decades or so, when people are set back into their “normal” lives, Australians will be discriminated against for a long, long time. They will only be able to do the bad jobs while all the invading country will be able to live up to all their dreams while not worrying about the Australians. There will be a big difference between the rich and the poor. Each person throughout the book takes the role of leadership, even if they know it or not, but the biggest leaders are Ellie and Homer. In the book Ellie is the thinker. She can stand back and can look at the whole situation and think of the risks, but at the same time she can also make fast decisions and can react on the spot. Homer is an all round leader. He is very good at coming up with ideas and war tactics. When Homer was in school he was always causing trouble and pranking people. To do this, Homer had to be clever, quick and be able to react fast, and he has adapted these skills to war. Robyn is the one who keeps faith in the group. She never gives up, and will always care for others. Corrie will make radical decisions to help the group, and Kevin will do anything to help Corrie. Chris will go along with anything the group decides, but he doesn’t have many ideas. Chris isn’t a very good leader, but he has courage. Lee, along with Ellie, is the emotional one. He can see how another person feels and thinks, and is always willing to help.
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 * Task 2: **
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I think that a few characters show a lot of courage throughout the book. Robyn is very brave. She saves Lee by carrying him all the way to his restaurant when he was shot. Doing something like that would be very hard, especially when you have armed soldiers chasing you. Robyn never gave up, and her faith keeps her going. Ellie knows that she killed some soldiers, and she feels very guilty, but she did it to save her friends. It shows that she would put everything on the line to save the people she loves.
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Throughout the novel Ellie and Lee slowly develop a strong romantic relationship. There are many times when Lee is tested by Ellie and Ellie is tested by Lee, like when Lee wants to have a relationship, and starts pressuring Ellie into it. Ellie is confused and wants to take things slow. Even know they both like each other very much. Ellie wants to have a relationship but she starts to think of the future. If they break up later then there will be tension between them. Lee feels that they should go for it and think about that later. This is why Ellie is concerned about Lee’s morality. I think that John Marsden chose Ellie as a narrator because she is the thinker and feeler. She likes to stand back and have a look at the situation. She takes in the risks and the benefits and decides what the best option is. She also has a very strong relationship with the group and especially Lee. She can describe her relationship with Lee very well because it is so strong.
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Foreshadowing is where the writer will drop hints about what might happen later on in the book. At the time you won’t realise that you could be reading foreshadowing. John Marsden used foreshadowing in “Tomorrow when the War began.” When they first go camping and they see planes fly overhead without lights and the group jokes about World War Three starting while they are down in hell. On the second page when Ellie is starting to write her book, she talks about how she “might be remembered.” She says that her and her friends “Don’t want to end up a pile of dead white bones, unnoticed, unknown, and worst of all, with no one knowing or appreciating the risks they’ve run.” With this piece of text the reader knows something terrible has happened, but they don’t know what yet. On page nine Ellie gets off the phone from Fi after talking about the trip to hell, when she hears on the TV: “Do you think defence is high on the Government’s agenda?” the interviewer asked. “High? High? You must be joking! Do you know what they’ve cut from the defence budget?” She also hears, “We’ve got a wimp for a foreign minister!”
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I think that Homer undergoes the most change throughout the novel. At the beginning of the book Homer is a prankster, silly and very funny. When the War comes, they flee into Hell, and the group starts to see a side of Homer that they have never seen before. He starts to become a natural leader, and he thinks of the whole team. He had some old skills from when he used to prank people. Being fast on his feet and being able to look at his surroundings are some skills that he has carried on into the warzone. Skills like this can be very helpful in tight situations, which are common in war. He also became very full-on with his relationship with Fi. The group had never seen Homer interested in any sort of relationship before. Ellie called Homer a genius because he came up with very smart and tactical plan to ‘rescue’ Lee and blow up the bridge. It surprised the whole group that Homer, who was once a prankster, has turned into someone that can make good, smart decisions. When under pressure Homer starts to become more ‘hands on’ and stops ‘mucking around.’ Throughout the book it becomes more and more obvious that he has changed. There is a scene where they go inside Ellie’s house after they find out they have been invaded. The group is making a list of all the things they were going to put in the Land-rover and take to Hell. Then they hear a helicopter noise, and they realise that they did not make a sentry, and that they left Flip, (Kevin’s dog) outside. When the Helicopter see’s Flip it comes very low to the ground and starts to search the house. Homer came up with the idea that they all should go into a different room, so that they can have a full 360 view of the house. It is ideas such as that, which make Homer a ‘genius’. Ellie is a good person. She thinks that she might become a war criminal, but she is not. Ellie only does what is best for her, and especially for her friends. She doesn’t want to kill anyone or do anything bad, and she tries to avoid hurting anyone as much as possible. When she killed the people with the lawn mower explosion she felt very guilty, but she was just acting in self-defence. She wasn’t planning to blow some people up, that day. The soldier’s that were chasing her were armed and trained to kill. She had to do something; otherwise she and her friends would have been killed. Ellie understands how important everyone’s role is, especially if you are a sentry. When Chris falls asleep on sentry, Ellie loses her temper with him. If the enemy had found them and possibly killed them, then it would have been blamed on Chris. He put all of their lives in danger. Ellie starts to see why sentries might be shot, but she only thought that because she was angry with him. Later, she calmed down and started to forgive Chris. Chris belonged in the group, because he had every right to, for his own safety, but he never had a very strong relationship with anyone in the group.
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** 1) ** **1)** Hell is the safe refuge for the group. They know that even if the enemy looks for them thoroughly, they still probably wouldn’t find them. They don’t need lookouts or sentry’s because they are safe. It becomes their new home. They know their families are safe, and if they wait, they will eventually see them again.
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**2)** The novel suggests that someone can ‘belong’ to the land or become ‘attached’ to the land. You truly belong to the land when you escape the ‘human’ world. When you start from the basics and not worry the complicated human laws, just the Hermit did a long time ago.

Corrie hurt her leg on the ride on mower, and Kevin nearly did too. This gave Ellie the inspiration to use the ride on mower as a bomb. Ellie was thinking about things to slow the soldiers down, without any guns. She knew that they didn’t have much of a chance for hiding, and that if they tried to attack the soldiers she would have to take them all out at once, so a bomb would be perfect.
 * Task 6) **
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John Marsden used a few different techniques to create tension in the scene. When Ellie is near the ride on mower she says that she can, “hear their footsteps crunch in the gravel,” and that she “only has a matter of minutes until they find them.” Also, Ellie has taken on leadership to guide them into Ms Alexander’s house, but when she gets there, she sees that she has led them to a dead end. She feels that she might have cost them their lives.
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John Marsden had not identified the characters that died because we might start to feel sorry for them. We would start to think of them as ‘real people,’ that have rights. In the book they are just referred to as “the enemy.” They are just objects, but in real life, Ellie would have killed people. We don’t think that Ellie is a murderer because in the book they are not people, they are just “the enemy.” John Marsden achieves this by doing a few different things. He doesn’t mention who is the invading county. For example, if he said that the invading county was Indonesia, the reader might have some sort of connection with Indonesia. They have visited it, or they might have family over there. When Ellie kills some soldiers they might feel sorry for the invading country and think that Ellie is a murderer. I think that John Marsden referred to the “Secret Seven” because even know they have different story lines; it shows that they can still relate to each other. The secret seven is about a group of kids that are involved in Burglaries, stolen animals and missing children. They develop strong leadership and courage just like they do in ‘Tomorrow when the war began.’ The secret seven kids have to go into hiding and have to sneak around just like the tomorrow when the war began kids. Both sets of kids deal with the same emotions but in different situations.
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 * Task 8) the story **

The Wedding

This day felt surreal. Like it was happening in a dream and I was going to wake up any time soon. But no, I knew this was the day I was going to marry Imogen Mary Christie. I smile broke across my face when the thought of her entering the chapel, her long dark hair spilling out over the crisp white wedding dress. I smoothed out my black suit and neatened up my tie, my hands shaking from the prospect of it all. A knock at door disrupted my thoughts, and I knew it was time. I turned to my lifelong friend, James. “This is it buddy.” I said, my voice slightly shaking.“You will be fine.” He said confidently. I nodded and glanced one last time in the mirror. Then I opened the slightly squeaking door and walked up to alter. A lovely fragrance fills my nostrils as I breathe in, from all the roses hanging around the church. Pink ribbons bring a splash of colour to the dark wood of the seats. This is it, Alfred.

The organ started to play the tune as the bride appeared at the end of the aisle. Every turned to look at her with emotion. Slowly she began to glide up the aisle, the flower girls delicately scattered rose petals of all colours on the ground in front. Her dark hair cascaded down her wedding dress and her brown eyes were filled happiness. The bridesmaids help up her pure white train with delicacy, as she made her way closer to the Alter. She daintily stepped up the Alter to face me as the celebrant began to say his piece I look into Imogen’s eyes to say “I Do.” I smiled as I slipped the ring onto her slim finger. Applause erupted around the Church as she took her veil off and we began to kiss. A rush of adrenalin went through my body and true happiness. Imogen tossed the bouquet of roses were into the air and a crowd of hopeful woman crowed around hoping to catch it. She slipped her hand into mine and we and ran out of the church together forever.

“Loyalty, courage, goodness. I wonder if they are human inventions too, or if they just are.” What doe’s TWTWB suggest Loyalty, goodness and courage are? Discuss.
 * Essay) **

‘Tomorrow When The War Began’ is an action filled book written by John Marsden. It stars a group of Australian teenagers that have to deal with fear, action and war. The Book suggests that loyalty, courage and goodness are human inventions. I think that we all have it inside of us, but we can choose to show it or not. We need loyalty to trust each other, and we need courage to be brave and conquer our fears. Goodness is all round kindness which earns us respect from others and can reflect your judgement and beliefs.

Loyalty is like trust; we need to be loyal to each other to earn respect. It is very important in human life that we are loyal to each other. I believe that loyalty is inside of all of us. We see it in nature all the time, like when a baby animal is born it relies in its mother to protect it, keep it warm, and feed it. It is putting all its trust in its mother to do these things and the mother (in most cases) will deliver. This is loyalty, and it is a bond between them. Everyone needs loyalty in their lives in order or survive. If the Mother was not loyal to her baby then it would have died. In some cases it can be the complete opposite. Some people put their trust in coffee to ‘get them up and going’ in the morning. Others might drink it to make them not so sleepy so they can perform better at work. These people are therefore loyal to their coffee shops. Loyalty is very important in everyday lives and even more important in TWTWB because the group relies on each other in order to survive. They trust each other to make the right moves and choices. If one member of the group where to get sick or wounded they can rely on each other to assist them. They haven’t actually told each other, but they know that if the time comes they can rely on each other. Everyone has courage inside of them but we all have different levels of it. We can all build on our courage to make it greater, but also our courage can decrease as well, but even if we know we have the courage to do something we still choose not to. Sometimes even if people think they don’t have the courage different circumstances can bring it out. Some people are very scared of roller coasters, but when they go on a roller coaster they can see that it isn’t so bad. In this situation there courage will grow, but if they go on one and have a bad experience then their courage will decrease. Sometimes they might just go do something else and their courage will stay the same. In TWTWB courage is very important; because it can help people do extraordinary things in the war-zone. It is vital that they have courage, otherwise they will not survive. When Lee gets shot Robyn showed an enormous amount of courage to help Lee back to his restaurant. Some people have different things to help give them courage, just like Robyn had her faith. Her belief in god gives her determination and courage, so she can do things that some of the others can’t. When Lee got shot Robyn knew that Lee would only slow her down. She had the choice to run and hide, or help Lee to safety, and she showed a huge amount of courage in order to help Lee.

Goodness is one of the most important things that the group can have. It is knowing what is right, and what is wrong. It is your beliefs and it is being a good, nice person. In the novel Ellie starts to condemn herself for murder after the lawnmower explosion. Her goodness re-adjusted itself. The new Ellie thinks that it is ok to kill in war, but the old Ellie thinks that murder is horrible. She starts to think about what she is becoming. She doesn’t know if she is a good or a bad person. If Ellie thinks that she is a bad person then she will think of herself as a murderer. When Ellie thinks back to “their screams in the night air,” after the lawn mower explosion she gets afraid. If she believed in the person she was becoming she would realise that she had no other choice. They were armed soldiers that are trained to kill. If she didn’t do anything she would have died. Being nice and caring is also important because it earns respect from other people. Once you have earned their respect you can trust and believe in them.

I believe that loyalty, courage and goodness are all very important and even more important in a war-zone. Loyalty is important because we need to trust each other to survive. We need courage to overcome our fears and step up when needed. And we need goodness for our beliefs and to know what is right and wrong. John Marsden’s writers message is that all these concepts are important, in any situation. If you’re in a war or not, these three concepts are important to the way we behave in everyday life.

By Ryan Lindsay