Mal

=Tomorrow, when the war began= Task 1
 * 1) 1. When the group had to decide what they were going to do after they realised that a war was beginning, Homer put 3 options in front of them. Try to rescue their families from the enemies, inflict damage on the enemy or go back to Hell and stay safe and alive. I believe that the group should have gone back to Hell and stayed safe. Although this decision would have been tough to make considering they would be leaving their families to the soldiers mercy even if there was nothing that they could do. Going back to Hell and staying safe and alive there would be the most logical decision because as the gang said when they were hiking into the dense undergrowth of Hell ‘only a few people have been down here’ and in extension the soldiers wouldn’t find them very easily.
 * 2) 2. Is murder considered wrong in war? It’s a tough question. War and murder is evil, but sadly if the world didn’t have war and murder in it, it would be worse off. War and murder go hand in hand. War and murder is basically the same thing except on a different scale. Because there is always a reason for a war to begin and there is always a reason for someone to murder someone. I don’t think murder is considered wrong in war but I consider war wrong. I don’t believe murder is wrong in war if a person has been killed because that person was attempting to harm or kill someone else. But if a person in war kills an innocent human being that was not threating in anyway, then yes, I do believe that would is considered wrong in war.
 * 3) 3. No, I don’t think the ‘enemy’ wouldn’t have been justified to refuse treatment to Corrie. Because Corrie didn’t contribute to the bridge explosion, and even if she did, I still think it would be wrong not to treat her. Because she did nothing to hurt them and she was not threating them in anyway. But this is easier said than done. The ‘enemy’ might have felt that even though she didn’t contribute to the explosion she was still part of the group that caused the explosion and then she was a potential threat. But in my opinion I believe that it wouldn’t be justified for the ‘enemy’ to refuse to treat Corrie.
 * 4) 4. This question doesn’t seem right to me because Australia never refused to share their wealth or it doesn’t say it in the book. Australia (in the date when the book is set in) had countries that they were trading with. Australia was, and still is exporting and importing goods from and to other foreign countries. In the book we begin to understand that the ‘enemy’ comes from an Asian country. Some countries in Asia are third world countries so it is in reason that those countries would want to invade Australia for its wealth and land. Their intensions was to give the Australians the poor underpaying jobs i.e. the Janitors and fast food servers and give their people the good and high paying jobs. In my opinion I think that it wouldn’t be fair for another country to come to Australia and demand our jobs because their country is in a crisis. I understand that my opinion might seem a little harsh, but Australians are the people that made our land wealthy and just because the invaders country isn’t doesn’t mean they can demand and fight for Australian jobs.

Task 2
 * 1) 1. I don’t believe there is one leader of the group because everyone in the book will lead at some stage depending on their strengths and weaknesses. For example the leader ship role Ellie takes on is the logical and deep thinker, during the book sometimes she will be dramatic and over react but she is the main thinker in the group. If I was to choose the main leader in the group I would choose homer. Homer is more of an physical leader but he is also has a great understanding of what the soldiers will be thinking and planning, he showed this when he suggest to the group ‘let’s go bush for a couple of days’ he knew that they could regain their energy and try and work out some tactics and what their next move was. In my opinion Homer is the main leader of the group but saying that I also believe that every person in the group balances each other’s weaknesses and strengths.
 * 2) 2. In the group I believe everyone adopted some form of courage that they didn’t have before. The people that stood out to me showing the most was Robyn, Ellie and Corrie. Robyn was known for being faint hearted and shy, she had to over come these behaviours to treat lee and heal his wound. I think Robyn was very brave to put herself into a position that she wasn’t comfortable with to help her friend. Corrie was another person that stood out to me that took on an extreme amount of courage. Corrie had to witness her house being blown up by the ‘enemy’, she had to witness the house that she grew up in, that contained all her childhood and family memories burn to the ground. Yes, she did go into severe shock but I believe that she did handle it very well, within a couple of hours she was moving forward and acting like nothing happened. Of course Ellie also showed courage that she hadn’t have before and she admitted that to us we she was at the showgrounds. Ellie had to think and act quickly when the soldiers were chasing them into Mrs Alexander’s property. Ellie realised that if they didn’t think of anything quick they would either be dead or held captive. Even though Ellie wasn’t proud of killing the three soldiers, she showed a great amount of courage by sacrificing her beliefs of harmony, for the safety of Corrie and Kevin and herself.
 * 3) 3. Test of friendships that I observed in the Novel were Ellie’s and Lee’s relationship and friendship, Kevin and Corrie’s relationship and Fi’s and Ellie’s friendship. The test Ellie and Lee experience are obvious, Ellie is confused how she feels about Homer and Lee and she feels like Lee is ‘bulling’ her into a relationship with Lee by Lee telling her ‘I don’t think you and Homer are right together’. Kevin and Corries test is where Corrie gets shot and it becomes obvious to the group if she doesn’t retrieve treatment urgently she will die. This is testing Corries and Kevin’s relationship dramatically, when Homer tells the group that we can’t stay with Corrie, Kevin realises what he has to do. Kevin sacrificed his own safety and freedom by taking Corrie to the hospital being run by the ‘enemy’. Ellie’s and Fi’s friendship also has a test when Fi comes to Ellie for advice on the situation she has with Homer, when Ellie doesn’t particularly want them to get together because she has confused feelings for Homer, but being the good friend Ellie is she helps Fi and doesn’t say anything about her feelings for Homer.

Task 3
 * 1) 1. In my opinion I think Ellie is the right person to have as the narrator and for the novel. But because Ellie is telling the story that she sees it, we generally see things like she dose. For example she finds Lee interesting so we also see him that way, she’s a little wary of Chris so we also and a little suspicious about him. But this effect would happen if it was any other person. From the novel Ellie comes off as a very down to earth girl. I don’t believe Ellie would bend the story to make herself or anyone else look more weak or heroic than they already were. Ellie comes across very logical and thinks about things and their consequences before she puts anything into action. I believe that Ellie would probably be the choice I would have made for the narrator story.
 * 2) 2. The term foreshadowing means dropping hints in a story to help display what will happen in the future. Marsden uses a lot of foreshadowing in the novel some examples are, when the group jokes about that world war 3, and how Commem day would be the perfect day to invade and also when they joke about the planes that flew over their camp site. The morning after the group saw the planes fly over they were joking around that ‘world war 3 could be going on and we wouldn’t know it’ this symbolised that how safe they thought they were and how isolated they were from the real world.

Task 4
 * 1) 1. It is made obvious in the novel that Homer changed dramatically because he used to be an immature school boy that finds smashing into windows funny, but now because of the war he changes into a logical, tactful, strong, independent boy who was forming into a man. But the change that I observed in Robyn that wasn’t as apparent as Homers was before the war and danger. Robyn was described as a timid and nervous person that was delicate and fainted a lot. The changes she undergoes during the war transformed her into a brave, strong, independent woman that conquered her fear of blood.
 * 2) 2. Homer was indeed tactful and inventive to think of blowing the bridge up so supplies can’t get to the town and also coming up with the idea up saving Lee with the digger. I believe when Ellie describe him as a genius she didn’t mean it literally, she meant that he was very smart to come up with a plans as sufficient and tactful that. I also believe that Ellie was a little thrown off, because she was used to Homer being a trouble maker and immature and all of a sudden this tactful inventive guy starts coming out of Homer. In the sense that Ellie meant, yes I think Homer was a genius to think of those plans.
 * 3) 3. I think Ellie is a good person because she only killed those people in the act of safety for her friends and herself. She’s not a war criminal because she didn’t kill innocent people. The people she killed were either trying to harm her, take her captive or kill her, Kevin and Corrie. A war criminal is when a person at war kills and innocent unthreatening person because they are from the country that they are fighting against.
 * 4) 4. In the middle of the novel the group finds a boy from their year, Chris, in his house alone, hiding, they are immediately hit with the question should they take him with them and they concluded that it will make their numbers stronger. During the first night Chris was on sentry duty and fell asleep. Ellie discovered him sleeping when we was meant to be on look-out she reacted aggressive and threatened to shoot him because that was the consequence in the real army. Because of Ellie’s out-break Chris became a little uncomfortable and that resulted in Chris not really being part of the group. Chris gradually made up for the mistake he had made. I do believe Chris is part of the group but at first you don’t consider him to be because you (as the reader) don’t know him as much as the other characters because he is new. As you are reading through Ellie’s point of view, because she is weary of Chris you as the reader become weary of him as well.

Task 5
 * 1) 1. In the novel ‘Hell’ plays the role of the sanctuary for the group. They group retreats back to Hell for safety, to regain their energy and to stay concealed from the view of the soldiers. It is ironic that Hell is named ‘Hell’ because the name ‘Hell’ in the bible and christen terms is a place where people are punished for their sins. But in this novel it plays the role of keeping the group safe and away from the people who are actually committing the ‘sins’.
 * 2) 2. In a way yes I think the novel is suggesting that you can belong to the land. In the book Ellie discovers the Hermit’s hut. The hermit was a tale about a man who ‘murdered’ his family. The Hermit is a metaphor for the books theory about belonging to the land, because the man who ‘killed’ is family, ran away from the judgement of the towns people because they couldn’t prove him guilty. The hermit ran into the dense Australian bush of Hell and blended into the landscape so no-one could find him. The years he spent hiding in Hell (just like the group) he begun to become a part of the land but living off it.

Task 6
 * 1) 1. Marsden describes Ellie as a quick thinker and logical person. I think what triggered Ellie’s brain to think of the ride-on mower as a bomb was a mixture of Corrie mentioning that she had hit it, Ellie started to figure out their techniques of the soldiers sticking together and firing randomly and her adrenaline.
 * 2) 2. Techniques that Marsden used in this chapter to create tension in this scene are when he extends the scenes, for example when Ellie, Corrie and Kevin were looking for the lawn mower and they couldn’t find it for a couple of minutes and when Ellie was lighting the match and she couldn’t light it because of her hands shanking. He also used the language, tones and gesture of the characters to create tension.
 * 3) 3. **(for this question I have combined question 4 into it because they are basically the same questions and I explain question 4 in this question)** Marsden doesn’t identify the people that Ellie killed for a reason. Because the country that has invaded Australia is seen as the ‘enemy’. Marsden dose not describe the soldiers to us, to create the effect of the reader not judging Ellie for her for her murders. Because we don’t know anything about the soldiers that Ellie killed (we don’t even know what country they’re from) we don’t blame Ellie for murdering them despite the fact that she only did it for her friends and her safety. If the enemies are faceless we don’t feel sorry for them.

Task 7 I think that Marsden referred to the novel ‘The Heart of Darkness’ when Ellie and Lee found the Hermits secret Metal box in the window pane because ‘The Heart of Darkness’ is about a man taking a journey to a foreign country and discovering the arrogance of people and what is truly in the ‘heart’ of everyman. I think this book was very similar to what happened to the hermit. The Hermit that retreated to Hell after his town had banished (socially) him because of his ‘crime’. In the novel it said that the Hermit had shot his wife and baby in the head with a gun, his wife and baby’s bodies were found with severe burns which could mean two things. **One:** after he shot his wife and child he tried to burn their bodies so he could conceal his crime. **Two:** That because their death occurred in bush fire season his wife and child were caught up in the fire and he shot them to put them out of their misery. His ‘crime’ was either an act of evil or great love. The novel ‘The Heart of Darkness’ reflects the Hermits situation because when his town convinced themselves that he had committed the crime he was accused of, the Hermit began to see the arrogant side of people. The town folk were obsessed with the idea of the Hermit murdering his wife and child. ‘The Heart of Darkness’ is also about what is truly in the ‘heart’ of every man. The book ‘Tomorrow, when the war began’ dose not tell us whether the Hermit was innocent or not, Marsden lets us decide. But if it was in fact true that he murdered his family, then it would be obvious that his heart was full of ‘evil’, but saying that does that mean that everyman’s heart has a little ‘evil’ in it, even the saints? Because the Hermit was just like the rest of us, he was just an ordinary man. But if the Hermit did kill his wife and child to put them out of their misery then his heart was full of love and bravery because we would not have any comparison or idea of what it would have taken to shoot the love of his life and his child in the head.
 * The Heart of Darkness**

Task 8 Bertram Christie was known as the Hermit from Hell because of the unforgivable ‘crime’ he committed. Bertram Christie was alleged to murder his faithful wife and his young child. Although the people of his town were convinced that he had done this terrible thing, they had no proof. When they found the bodies of his wife and child they were severely burnt. There were two possibilities that caused the death of his wife and child. **One**: That Bertram Christie brutally murdered his wife and child and afterwards attempted to burn the bodies to try and conceal the horrible crime he had committed. **Two**: Because their deaths occurred in bush fire season the other story was his wife and child had got caught up in a bush fire and got severely burnt and Bertram Christie shot both his wife and child in the head to put them out for their misery. The ‘crime’ he committed was either an act of evil and cruelty or a great act of love and courage. When the police couldn’t tell if the burning of the shooting came first he couldn’t be charged with anything because the police couldn’t prove that he did murder his family. The people of his town had convinced themselves to believe that he had committed the act of murder upon his wife and child. Bertram Christie was forced and banished from his town, not officially but socially, the towns women would gossip and spread rumours. So Bertram Christie trekked his way through the thick undergrowth of Hell and hid away from the society that had banished him and believed the worst. Bertram Christie had seen the worst and the unromanticised side of the human race. Although humans think murder, war, rape, abductions, robbery, terrorists acts etc. are evil and vile and bad. The fact is that we as humans thrive on it. For example when you’re watching the news on T.V almost every night there is a story on a murder, war, rape, abduction of a child or a robbery. This isn’t because it is considered more important than a story about what the local problems are or what has happened in the city that day. The reason why there is always a story about terrible things is because the human race thrives on these sorts of stories. Why would they put it on the news if we didn’t? I mean why would we want to listen about a 5 year old that has been abducted and the police finding the child remains in a ditch and the family being left scared and in misery? It’s disgusting and evil, but we as humans are interested in these type of things, we like to listen or read or create bad things (when I say ‘create’ I mean through rumours and gossiping). I think this is the reason why Bertram Christie’s town’s people jumped straight the conclusion that he did murder his family. So in conclusion on of the key challenges Bertram Christie faced was the ignorance of the towns people and the way they handled the assumption of Bertram Christie murdering his wife and child.