Zen

1: There are Pros and Cons for all of Homers ideas. If they try to rescue their families they would be put into a situation that would have a lot of danger in it. There would be the danger of getting caught, which wouldn’t be so bad because they would at least get to see their parents and be with them. They wouldn’t want to run into some people and have to kill them, which would affect Ellie’s conscious. If they inflict damage to the enemy, they would be able to choose stay quiet while they do it, or be loud and big. “Rock up in something so indestructible that we don’t give a damn who saw or heard us.” Another pro of having something big is that you would be safer. Choosing to stay quiet would be the safest option, but would you be able to live with yourself knowing that you did nothing to save your family? 2: Murder in war is defence. If you were assaulted by a person with a gun and you had something in your hand that you could use to stop them you would use it, whether you kill them or not, you wouldn’t just let them kill you. They were going to kill you anyway, why not do it to them first. What if they weren’t coming for you, what if they were going for your family, would you do it then? Ellie was justified to kill those soldiers, even if she didn’t want to, she had to. In war, the thing the enemy in coming for is your country, your people. If you want to defend it, the only thing stoping you is the enemy. 3: If the enemy wasn’t cold hearted then they probably wouldn’t be able to leave a human to die, even if that’s what they intended to do before. If you see a teenage girl dying by your hands, it has to do something to your heart. Even if it had have been a 30 or 40 year old man they probably would have taken him. They might just kill them though, put them out of their misery, but if you have some way to save them and you weren’t cold-hearted, you would. 4: If the invaders came to Australia to “address imbalances” why didn’t they make it balanced? If they gave Australians all the menial jobs and didn’t share their wealth it would be just as it was before, but in reverse. If they wanted to address imbalances why didn’t they make it equal, the Australian government would proudly make an amends with these people. Maybe they wanted to give us a taste of our own medicine. It wasn’t us they should be taking it out on; we didn’t do anything to them. ** Tomorrow Task 2 ** 1: Homer shows the traits of leadership. He shows courage and is a fast thinker. He is good with tactics. He usually comes up with good plans, but they require some dangers and there not very well thought through. That’s were Ellie comes in. She thinks through the plans and figures out what to do if things go wrong or how to make the plans better. “Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way.” Ellie suggests that the plan could be made better. She says “Well, we’re thinking of little quiet sneaky things. We could go to the other extreme.” Maybe some of Homers plans aren’t so dangerous, maybe that’s just Ellie wanting to make it bigger and better. “What Ellie did with the ride-on mower gave me the idea.” A little of Ellie rubbed off on to Homer and gave him the idea to blow up the bridge.
 * Tomorrow Task 1 **

2: All of the characters show signs of courage throughout the novel. Homer has shown courage and stepped up to lead the group. Ellie has had to overcome her thoughts of the people she killed. Fi has been a city girl and she was just thrown into the outback in its most dangerous time. When Ellie blows up the mower she needed to think smart and quick. That is a sign of courage.

3: Nearly all the characters are struggling in relationships while all the action is going on. These relationships are being tested by what’s going on around them. If one of the people in the relationship leaves to go and do something dangerous it leaves the other one scared and waiting for them to come back. If any of these relationships broke off, there would be serious tension in the group. You would have people not wanting to go and do things with other people and practically halving the amount of people you can send out on missions. Marsden hints towards Ellie questioning Lee’s morals. He foreshadows their relationship failing in the future.

** Tomorrow Task 3 ** 1: Ellie was chosen as a narrator because she thinks and feels. Marsden chose Ellie because she feels something for each of the characters. She likes Homer and Lee, which adds some more tension to the novel. She is friends with all the girls. She dislikes Chris. Marsden has tried to make Ellie as relatable as possible, so that you live the story vicariously through her. All the characters she likes, you like, the characters she hates, you hate. She persuades you into thinking like her and taking her side for various arguments. When she is thinking about the people she killed, it makes you think as well. 2: Foreshadowing in a novel is when the author puts in hints about what could happen later on. An example in this novel would be when the planes fly over and the group have a discussion about War and “We’ve probably been invaded and we don’t even know”. When they came back from hell they saw soldiers walking through the town with guns, but it wasn’t until they saw the stadium where they were keeping their parents that they realised the soldiers were bad. ** Tomorrow Task 4 ** 1: Ellie and Homer both underwent change throughout the novel. The characters reference back to when they were at school and how everything was different then. They say that Homer was childish when they were at school. Ellie thinks about Homers change a lot. She thinks about how he’s changed and how much better he is now. He became a leader and was able to think tactically. Nobody knew about his talent because none of the characters were really his friends, but when they were put into a pressured situation he blossomed. At the start of the novel Ellie makes a small bomb that kills three soldiers, this is probably the point where she changes the most. There is a lot of spare time for Ellie as they’re travelling between houses and just lying around at Hell, it’s at these spots that she thinks the most. She thinks about the lives of the soldiers and weather she will become a cold blooded killing machine. 2: Homer was a “genius” for coming up with both of the big plans. When he “came up” with the plan to rescue Lee, he needed a nudge from Ellie to get into the right direction. She suggests that they use something big and indestructible, which lead to Robyn coming up with “one of those things with a shovel in front.” Homer came up with the plan to rescue Lee, but Robyn and Ellie finalised it. When Homer came up with the plan to blow up the bridge he really thought it through. He got help from all the characters for this plan. 3: Ellie was right to kill those soldiers; she was doing it under self-defence. She thinks about the soldiers too much and creates an evil image for herself. She starts to think of herself as some evil demon that kills for fun. “What if I keep killing” she says to herself, “What if I enjoy it” If you’re doing something for the freedom of your family and friends then you’re doing something right. 4: Chris didn’t belong in their group. They picked him up because they couldn’t leave him behind. Ellie was probably thinking that it was her fault that Chris fell asleep on sentry duty because she could have chosen to leave Chris where he was. He did not have the same thoughts on what was going on. He didn’t really take any of it seriously. ** Tomorrow Task 5 ** 1: Hell is their home. It signifies //their// land and what is left of it. They use it as a base and become attached to it. “I can understand why the Hermit chose to live down here, away from it all.” Ellie often references to the Hermit and how he was “isolated” from the rest of the world. The Hermit opened an entire new aspect of Hell. When Ellie and Lee investigated the Hermits hut it’s like your reading a completely different book. 2: When Ellie is trekking back to Hell on her own she has some time to think. She thinks about “belonging” to the land. She thinks she could just lie down and blend into it. We are the lands children and we belong to it. It doesn’t want to let us go. ** Tomorrow Task 6 ** 1: The adrenaline helps Ellie come up for the idea to blow up the mower. All the gunshots and running had made Ellie “arrogant” and want to take the lead of the group. When she took the lead she led the group to a dead end. She starts to blame herself for them getting killed, even though they hadn’t yet. Corrie brings up that she had hurt her leg on a ride-on mower, and this gives Ellie the idea to blow it up. 2: Marsden uses Ellie to create tension in this scene. She says, “We’re going to die and it’s all my fault”. This is telling us that Ellie is stressed and that it is making us stressed. “When the door opened, the interior light, to my horror, came on.” There are little things like this scattered throughout this segment of the novel. They frighten you and make you question what will happen to the characters. 3: Marsden doesn’t let the reader get connected to the soldiers because he wants us to feel that Ellie has done the right thing by killing them. He gives us vague little hints to who they are, like telling us that one of them is a woman. He does this because he wants us to be on Ellies side. If you knew one of them was young you would start to judge Ellie, and whether or not what she did was right. 4: We don’t condemn Ellie for the murders because we have seen her journey and what she did before this. If you’re reading this novel and you’re an Australian you will try and put yourself in Ellies shoes. You live with her and feel the same as her. You think “What if that was me, what would I do?” You’ve been living through Ellie for the start of the book and all her thoughts help you decide what you should think of her.

** Tomorrow Task 7 **

Marsden chose this book because it relates to his own story. The Famous Five is about a group of kids that go and have adventures. Tomorrow When the War Began is just that, a group of “kids” that have “adventures”. Marsden’s novel is just a darker version of Enid Blyton’s novel. “Those books don’t have a lot of bearing on what’s happened to us.” The characters reference the book and how it is like what they are going through at the moment.

Tomorrow Task 8

The sounds of their screaming filled the air. Their bodies getting roasted by the hot, red flames. I needed to act fast, so I ran inside to grab my rifle. My shaking hands, my troubled thoughts making it impossible to decide what to do. I picked it up anyway, hoping to make a decision before I reached them. I hoped that I wouldn’t have had to do it. When I got back to them they were still burning. The flames roared, the screams haunted my mind. “Help” was the last thing I heard my wife say, just before I gave her, an escape.

That’s what I told the jury, when it was my time to give a testimony.

“Please believe me, it’s all true!” I pleaded.

“That will be it, Mr. Christie” said the judge.

It was now Wilson George and Muriel Mayberry’s turn to make a testimony. They were my neighbours.

“Bertram was a loving husband and father to his wife and son.” said Wilson.

“His wife was the same,” added Muriel, “she was dutiful and even-tempered.”

I felt tears roll down my face; I just wanted them back so much. I wish that I could have saved them, but in a way, I did.

Later that night I had another nightmare, but it was like I was a spectator of my own dream. I saw myself grabbing the rifle and stomping into the living room. In there were my wife and son playing, they weren’t on fire, what was I doing with the rifle?

“What are you doing with the rifle sweaty?” said Imogen.

Bang. I shot her in the leg. Alfred started crying.

I wanted to jump in and save them, but I couldn’t save them, from myself. I was now looking right into my own eyes. I looked down, and saw my tiny little feet. Imogen was holding me in her arms, although I wasn’t me, I was Alfred. I didn’t know why but I started to scream and cry. Daddy shot mummy in the leg. Tomato sauce started to pour out of the hole in mommy’s leg. She was screaming. She held me tighter and tighter.

“What’s daddy doing?” I said

She couldn’t speak, only scream. Suddenly the tight grip was gone. Mommy’s hands fell to the ground. I tried to hug her as hard as I could, but she didn’t get back up. Daddy started to walk towards me. I was trying to hide from him. I ran through the kitchen and into mummy and daddy’s room. I hoped into the closet and shut the door. The closet had blinds so I could see out of it. Daddy came in with the gun. Bang! Wooden chunks exploded next to me. I could hear myself breathing, so could dad.

BANG!

My body shot up out of bed. I was breathing heavily. Now it was just me, alone, in the dark with my thoughts. I had twisted the image of myself into a murderer. I had killed my wife and son.

Later that month I was back in court and found not guilty, but I could still feel the guilt and evil inside of me. I needed to get away from it.

I bought a house in a very disclosed location. Everything I had from my past life, I hid away, in a metal box. I hope one day someone will find it, and hear of the story of Bertram Hubert Sexton Christie.

** Tomorrow Task 10 **

Loyalty, courage and goodness, what are they? Nobody knows they have them, but they do. We keep them bottled up inside until a situation calls for them. They are like all the other emotions, only coming out when they have to. These three specifically are brought out in a situation like war. Loyalty, it shows up when you are working with people and that you’re not going to let them down. Courage, a strange one, not many people realise they have it, and it rarely shows up in people. Goodness, weighing in right and wrong, good and bad, making sure good is always stronger.

Banding together, getting each other’s backs, that’s what loyalty is. Tomorrow When the War Began shows many aspects of loyalty. A group of friends band together and form a small guerrilla group. Loyalty is much more important in war because if you don’t have each other’s backs, you’re dead. Usually, if you’re in the army, you will be put into squads with people you don’t know. In the novel the characters have the advantage of already being close friends, further increasing their loyalty for each other. Being able to trust someone makes you feel safer. Before the war they had their parents who they trusted. They knew that their parents would do anything to save them. “Corries my mate and I’m not going to dump her and run”, the group suggests that they leave their dying friend out the front of a hospital, to save themselves. Kevin is Corries boyfriend and he is shocked by what they had said and offers to risk his own life to try and save hers by taking her to the hospital. When Kevin did this it showed that the group would do anything for each other. Loyalty is when friends are relying on you, and you will do anything to not let them down.

Courage is becoming a hero, doing something you didn’t think you were capable of. All of the characters show courage in this novel. Whether it is out on the battlefield or dealing with small problems, like what to eat, or where to hide. Being thrust into a war that you weren’t prepared for would be tough. You would have never even thought about what you would do in that sort of situation. It would have just been something you saw on T.V. Courage bonds with leadership. Becoming a leader is a pressuring job. It takes courage to handle that pressure. The war situation is filled with courage. Things like running out into gunfire, or running out into gunfire to save someone. Courage mostly comes out in situations when someone is in trouble. Robyn builds up a lot courage throughout the novel. She saves Lee after he has been shot, risking her life. She also goes from a queasy girl to the groups doctor. Courage is something we all have, but we have no idea we have it.

Marden uses Ellie to display the themes of good and bad throughout the novel. Near the start of the novel she kills three soldiers. She constantly asks herself if what she had done was right. The old Ellie would have never thought of doing anything like this. The new Ellie didn’t have a choice. She didn’t have her family to tell her that what she did was right. If there is nobody telling you that what you are doing is good, then you get confused. She doubts the goodness inside herself. It’s still there, but it’s a different type of good. The old Ellie doesn’t know how to deal with this new good, she sees it as bad. So she needs to change her point of view on right and wrong. You need goodness to stay sane, but when you think about it too much, it could make you go insane.

Tomorrow when the war began is a book about a group of teenagers that get put into a situation they are not prepared for. Marsden has the idea that emotions come up when the situation calls for them. Loyalty, courage and goodness are the strongest and deepest emotions. They can show a side of you that you probably never knew existed. Marsden made the novel to talk about what he thinks about war and friendship, and to make us think about these concepts as well. He gives us the message not to take our lives for granted and that there is more to us than we think.