Damon

TWTWB assignment

There were 3 choices put to the group by homer, they were to try to rescue their families, inflict damage on the enemy or sit tight and stay safe. All of these have the potential of taking their lives; however the safest option would have to be to sit tight. That option is a bit unrealistic if they were to do it for a long period of time because every day the enemy is getting more and more soldiers and facilities through the bridge, and the main thing that the group would need is food and there not going to live on rabbits. They would have to go to town and get food and with the growing enemy army they would have no hope of doing that over and over. So the best way would be to way would be inflicting damage on the enemy bat at the same time staying safe. They made a very good choice in theory however it was very dangerous. They decided to cut off the main access to cobblers bay and therefor stoping more troops coming in. the group made a good choice to stay safe but still inflict damage to the enemy in a major way and slowing them down. There are situations in war where you might have to take someone else’s life to save others, Ellie found here self in this situation a few times. One was the bridge explosion, Ellie was relieved that she probably didn’t kill anyone in that one but she felt bad for killing 3 other enemy’s in the mower explosion. That was a good idea because if she didn’t do that herself, Kevin and Corrie would have all probably been killed, plus the enemy had taken everyone in captivity and had probably killed a few civilians as well. If you are in a situation in war where you own and maybe others’ lives are in danger then it should be okay to kill. All of the times that the enemy had been shooting at the civilians such as Lee and Corrie, they were out to kill. This shows that they would probably not treat Corrie because they wanted to kill in the first place. It would make them more satisfied if they didn’t as well because they know that they have weakened the group and it would be their way of getting justice on them for killing three soldiers. The enemy doing a ‘role reversal’ would have been worse than the way Australia already was like. If Australia was taken over by military, it would just result in more wars because other countries would help us and try and fight off the enemy. And if they didn’t the political system would develop badly because Australians wouldn’t obey it. It would be fair if Australia ‘shared its wealth’ however it could also result in more bad things like the other countries using it badly. It is much less fair for the enemy to invade Australia because that is not going to fix their problems it’s just going to make things worse.
 * Tomorrow when the war began **
 * __ Task 1 __**
 * 1) **1.** **Homer puts three choices to the group…**
 * 1) **2.** **Ellie is relieved that she has probably not killed anyone in the bridge explosion…**
 * 1) **3.** **Ellie killed people when she caused the first explosion and when she saved lee…**
 * 1) **4.** **Robyn ‘could understand’ why the ‘enemy’ had invaded…**


 * __ Task 2 __**

in a group of people, there is almost always going to be a leader. In this book Ellie is probably the person that shows the most leadership. Homer also show a lot of leadership but in a different way. Ellie is a good leader because she is a good at decision maker and she always shows a lot of initiative, however she sometimes gets carried away with things that are going on in the group. Homer is very good at thinking of smart plans and helping make decisions and he also shows lots of mental maturity in some situations, which is not at all what the group had known him as. So in this group the main leaders are Homer and Ellie. The group went through so many situations that need a lot of courage. Everyone in the group shows remarkable courage because of what they had all went through. Lee showed amazing bravery in situations like when he got shot in the leg and he still agreed to get in the bucket of the truck and face death, enemies were shooting directly at him and he had already been shot so he knew of the excruciating pain. Also when Fi and Ellie where running to set off the truck bomb and there was about 6 enemies were shooting at both of the and at any time, the truck could of exploded if a bullet pierced it. On page 240 fi quotes “I feel pressure of keeping up with you guys” and that shows that she has really changed and stepped up to a new level of bravery. In situations like that is when people in the group have to just overcome their fears and step up to the plate because at any point all of them could have died. In the book Ellie and lee went through many different stages with their relationship. Ellie confused lee by being confused. They were getting really close and kissing and then Ellie just walked off, it wasn’t because she didn’t like him it was because she was stuck between homer and lee. Ellie was attracted to homer in a physical way but she really like lee’s personality and how interesting he was. Fi and homers relationship brought jealousy to Ellie and when she told lee this it made lee think that she might not be the best person to be in a relationship with even though he really liked her. Lee wanted to talk everything through however Ellie wasn’t very keen on that idea because she was two confused. If lee and Ellie hadn’t thought as much about the consequences in their relationship it might have worked a bit better.
 * 1) **1.** **Who is the leader of the group?**
 * 1) **2.** **Who in the group, shows remarkable courage?**
 * 1) **3.** **Ellie is concerned by Lee’s morality; she’s concerned that if the romantic relationship breaks up there will be tension in the group. What tests of their friendship did you observe in the novel?**


 * __ Task 3 __**

Marsden made a very good choice in in the narrator. Ellie has great qualities that form a very good narrator. One of the main things that she is good at is that she thinks a lot deeper than other people. Ellie thinks about more than just consequences, she puts together all of the things that she can think of and weighs them up to see if something is safe. If someone else was the narrator, the whole book would be in an entirely different perspective and Ellie’s is probably the best perspective to read the book from. In this circumstance foreshadowing means that the author has used small hints to point out what could happen but still keeping your mind open. In this book Marsden pointed it out early but in a not very obvious way. When the planes fly over at the start of the book when the group is camping in hell, someone subtly joked about them getting invaded and that is actually what happened. Every one panics when they get back and no one is there and the dogs are dead everyone tries to think of other possibilities that weren’t as bad, however in the end Ellie points out that the only one that fits all of the unexplained events is them getting invaded. That is a very good example of foreshadowing in a novel and Marsden has done it very well.
 * 1) **1.** **How reliable do you think Ellie is as a narrator? Why do you think Marsden chose her as the narrator?**
 * 1) **2.** **Find out what the term __foreshadowing__ means in relation to novels?**


 * __ Task 4 __**

All of the characters go through many changes in this novel, but the one that changed the most was homer. He used to be seen as a person that doesn’t care about rules and is generally stupid. The situation forced him to change to a caring smart person that doesn’t spend all of his time joking around and pulling pranks on people. it takes a lot of maturity to change that quickly and adapt to a situation and that maturity grew as the novel went on.
 * 1) **1.** **Which character do you think undergoes the most change? Explain the journey that your character underwent during the novel?**


 * 1) **2.** **Ellie at one stage outlines what she sees as “homers genius” – was Homer a genius for coming up with the plans to rescue lee and destroy the bridge?**

Homer was very smart to think of the plans that he did and he could defiantly describe him as a genius but only in some ways. The fact that when he thought of the plans like to blow up the bridge and he was under pressure shows that he is very good at thinking hard in difficult situations. While he was thinking up plans other people were thinking of bad things that might happen in the future, they weren’t thinking of how to stop them. Homer thought very logically with his plans, he thought of how to stop future problems instead of thinking of what’s going on now. Ellie was right in calling homer a genius because of the initiative that he showed in hard situations.

There is no reason to say that Ellie isn’t a good person, she might have killed three people however she save three people by doing this. She is not in any way a war criminal because a war criminal is a person that kills people when they don’t need to be killed. It wasn’t Ellie’s intension to kill she just wanted to save her friends. If she didn’t kill the three enemies herself, Kevin and Corrie might have been killed anyway. Ellie only feels bad for killing the people because she is a nice person and that is what most people are like. If you killed three people, it is probable that you would feel like a ‘war criminal’.
 * 1) **3.** **Ellie worries that she might become ‘like a war criminal’ because of the acts she’s committing. She says she uses “a sense within her” to determine what was “good or bad”. Was Ellie a ‘good’ person?**

Even though Chris is quite a bit different to most people in the group, he could still be part of it. If he changed his morals a little bit and tried to belong he might be able to, it is just because he betrayed them on sentry duty that people don’t like him in the group because they can’t really trust him and that makes sense. But if he didn’t change then he probably wouldn’t fit in. He still belongs in the group because he is on their side, so the group wouldn’t just leave him. Chris belongs in the group however it might take a bit to fully belong in a friendship way.
 * 1) **4.** **When Ellie finds Chris asleep on sentry duty she loses her temper with him. She understands why sleeping sentries should be ‘shot’. She becomes ‘logical, cold-blooded and merciless’. Later she says that “I guess he Atoned.” Did Chris belong in the group?**


 * __Task 5__**

> Hell played a few roles in the novel, the main one was being the safe place for the group. It provided lots of safety and it helped the group recharge and get things back together after hard times. If the group didn’t have a safe place to stay they would have to move from place to place while constantly keeping alert, this would take away energy very fast and you can’t completely rely on a sentry duty, all a sentry duty can do is stay on a look out and then alert you of the danger and when you get alerted you would probably be asleep, so you wouldn’t have much energy to fight or think straight. The novel does suggest the people can belong to a place. It names the main place hell and then spends a lot of time describing how beautiful it is, and it also has the hermit, who did ‘belong’ in hell. He practically made it belong to him because no one else lived there and not many people even knew about it. He had spent all of the last years of his life there and had made it his own by building a house and bridge and probably a few other things as well.
 * 1) **1.** **What role does hell play in the novel?**
 * 1) **2.** **Does the novel suggest that people can ‘belong’ to the land?**

> Ellie is very good at thinking in difficult situations; she is very logical and always thinks straight away about what she could do to save people’s lives. In this situation she probably just straight away thought of what to do to save them or at least buy them some time. She probably wouldn’t have known that the mower was there if corrie didn’t bump in to it so in a way that helped her think of blowing up the mower. > > > Marsden creates tension in a few very good ways in this book, first of all he makes corrie hurt herself by running in to the mower. This means that they can’t run off, and they have to stay stationary and think of something to save themselves. Then Marsden creates tension by making them not have much time to think and act. > Marsden makes it hard to identify the people who die because he doesn’t want the reader to have feelings for them and get attached because otherwise the reader would get less attached to the people in the group who killed people. Marsden does this very well by simply not saying much at all about the enemy and making them not sound like good people. Ellie isn’t condemned for the murders because, it was a life or death situation and she was saving three people’s lives by doing this. She wasn’t doing this to be a bad person she was just saving hers and two others lives. This has actually made Ellie a stronger person because she knows that she saved peoples lives.
 * __Task 6__**
 * 1) **1.** **What inspires Ellie with the idea to use the ride on mower as a bomb?**
 * 1) **2.** **What techniques does Marsden use to create tension in this scene?**
 * 1) **3.** **Marsden is careful not to let the reader strongly identify the people who die. How does he achive this and why does he do this?**
 * 1) **4.** **Why do we not condemn Ellie for the murders?**

The Seven have a secret password, a badge, and a secret headquarters in a garden shed. The Seven are led by Peter and include Peter's sister Janet, and their friends Jack, Colin, George, Pam and Barbara. They are joined by their golden spaniel, Scamper. The society was actually formed in a short story prior to the first book in this series. The first was//At Seaside Cottage//, featuring Peter and Janet, and the second was //The Secret of Old Mill//, which featured the entire gang in their first Society meeting. Peter enforces the rules and delegates tasks for the members. The Seven investigate mysteries by shadowing, interviewing and, most importantly, looking for clues. The Seven tackle all sorts of mysteries from missing dogs to mail robbery, and always come out on top. Marsden refers to the secret seven in this book mainly because it is quite similar to Tomorrow When the War Began. The summary makes it sound like the book is very adventurous just like Tomorrow When the War Began. Marsden also refers quite a bit to the bible through Robyn, who is very religious. This might have been to bring out a different side to the book that is made to point out a religious side of peoplethat bring out some different responsabilities.
 * __task 7__**
 * Web summary:** The Secret Seven are a secret society who hold regular meetings and organize things to do, whether it's helping the community in some way, solving mysteries that turn up, or just having fun playing Red Indians in the woods.
 * Website:** []
 * Why did marsden refer to these novels in the book?**


 * __Task 10__**


 * Tomorrow when the war began – essay**
 * “Loyalty, courage, goodness. I wonder if they are human inventions too or if they just are,”**
 * What does T.W.T.W.B suggest that loyalty, courage and goodness are?**

Tomorrow when the war began is a book written by John Marsden, which involves Australia being invaded by an enemy country. The book deals with a group of people that completely change as a result of losing basically everything when their town gets invaded. Loyalty, courage and goodness are three things that play a big part in the characters personalities throughout this book. Many of the characters do not start off with these traits; however they very quickly developed them when they noticed what situation they were in. loyalty is essential in a life and death situation, courage is what you need to get over the fears that surround you and goodness is the thing that keeps you going in horrible situations and assures you that you are doing the right thing. Courage is a very helpful trait to have especially in a situation like this book. Some of the people in this book started off with lots of courage already and others had to grow and get over their fears to get it. Ellie was probably the most courageous at the start however all of the others ended up with amazing courage. Lee is the perfect example for gaining courage, after he got shot; he was brave enough to lie down in the front of a tip truck which not many people would do even in a situation like this. Courage can come up in anyone it just depends on the situation and what type of person you are. Loyalty plays a very big part in most of the characters in this book. It brings out another side to people like Homer. Loyalty is one of the most important traits someone can have in a life and death situation. Loyalty keeps groups together and if people in a group aren’t loyal, the group begins to split up and in a life and death situation, which will usually end up with death. Loyalty comes up in every main character in this book; there were situations like the mower bomb, where Ellie was blowing up the lawn mower to save her friends, which was being loyal, if she wasn’t loyal she probably would have just ran off leaving Corrie who was injured alone to die. Loyalty is the light stitching that bounds a group and save lives. Goodness is the thing that keeps people sane especially in a war situation like this. It also keeps you thinking that you aren’t in the wrong. In war people begin to think that killing people is wrong and feel bad for it, however they are doing it for good most of the time and goodness helps them think in that mindset. Goodness is a major thing in this book because of some of the things that the characters had to do. Like when Ellie thought she was a bad person because she killed two people in order to save three lives, that is not a bad thing and over time when Ellie gained goodness she realised that. Goodness is one of the best qualities to have especially in a war situation because it keeps you thinking the way you should be. Courage, loyalty, and goodness put together make someone a lot safer in war. Courage is so important because it helps people get over the barrier that holds them from doing thing that they fear. Loyalty keeps groups together and is essential for staying alive, it will not only just keep the group together it will make the friendships in the group a lot better. Goodness takes care of that one other element which is sanity, because you could be courageous, and loyal but not sane and that is what will kill you, it also keeps you thinking that you are doing the right thing. All of the important qualities make the perfect person in war. These qualities will save lives, keep you sain and make you get over your fears and this is what all of the people in Tomorrow When The War Began went through and it is these traits that lead the group to success.