In John Marsden's Tomorrow When The War Began, the first book of an adventure seeking series, he portrays several themes to the reader. Leadership is one of the main themes that is shown in the book. At many different stages they each have to face a leadership role. John Marsden shows the reader that Leadership is an important asset in life and is needed in any, and every, situation. Marsden also conveys the theme of relationships. Even though they are trapped in the middle of a war not knowing what to do first they still manage to build great relationships with each other as the story progresses. Marsden shows here that there are always relationships and feelings, even in the middle of a war. The main skill that they show is survival. They face life-threatening situations all through the book but yet they outsmart the enemy every time and stay alive. Survival is an important skill to be able to conduct because it shows that when you are placed in a dangerous situation you think about what you need to do.
John Marsden shows the theme of leadership all throughout the book.
When they came back from Hell, a little clearing below quite a bit of bush in Tailor's Stitch, they arrive at Ellie's house only to find that her pets are dead and there is no one around. They find a fax at her house from her dad, he thought that something was going wrong at the showgrounds, and that's when they concluded that they had been invaded. When it was dark, Ellie, Kevin and Corrie set off for the showgrounds only to be seen by a soldier. They tried running from the soldiers but could only stay ahead of them a little bit so they decided to hide in a backyard. The soldiers were about to search the yard when Ellie took a stand and blew up the ride-on mower that was in the driveway and killed the two soldiers that had been chasing them – "I had to show a type of courage I've never had to show before" pg 63. Ellie was nominated by the rest of the group to write a journal entry everyday as a memory of what they went through during the war. Although she was writing for the whole group most of what she wrote was her own thoughts. Another example of Leadership is when Homer suggested blowing up the Wirawee Bridge to make it difficult for the enemy with passing trucks and convoys – "That was Homer's genius. He combined action with thought and he planned ahead" pg 111. Of coarse Homer took lead of the whole set-up. He appointed a position that they were comfortable with and made sure they knew what to do and when to do it. They succeeded with their plan and caused a bit of conflict between them and the enemy. From these events the characters learn that is there isn't a leader when they undergo a set task it won't get very far. It shows the reader that leadership is an important role in life as long as you're not always leading and that there always has to be a leader otherwise everyone will do their own thing and won't get anything done.
Relationships are another of the main themes portrayed in the book. Relationships were developing every passing day for them, whether they could see it happening or not. They all had a good relationship with each other and knew each other well, having spent so much time together. Ellie and Homer were the closest of them all. Because they grew up on farms next-door to each other and visited each other frequently they formed a bother-sister relationship. Ellie had good relationships with Corrie, Robyn and Fi but had been best friends with Corrie for years. Ellie felt a protective sense over her friends and feared the war because she didn't want to lose any of them – "My fear came from love, love for my friends" pg 141.
Throughout the book Ellie developed strong feelings for Lee. She told him how she felt and he felt the same way about her. Although they didn't have much in common, Lee was a musician and Ellie was bought up on a farm, they still had a close relationship. – "He's like two people. He's shy with me but confident when he's in a group" pg 267. The characters learn from the situation of being trapped in a war that love for their friends overrides any other feelings. Love can create more feeling like fear but it can't overrule fear of death or being hurt. In the book at stages Ellie tries to convince herself that she doesn't have feelings for Lee but when she sits down to think about it she realises she was just trying to hide her feelings because she was scared of being hurt. By this the reader is encouraged to consider that relationships are still important no matter what you're going through and that even if you try and cover up your feelings you know in your heart that they're still there.
The last theme that I will be discussing that Marsden shows in the book is survival. My first example is when they first realise that they've been invaded and they sneak around the streets collecting food from houses for supplies not knowing how long they would have to stay in hiding for. Sneaking around the streets at night in their own hometown wasn't what they were used to – "That was the kind of world we were used to. We ever seriously thought it would change" pg 14. Another good example of survival is when Ellie is running from the petrol tank to meet Fi at the motorbikes and she's being shot at by all the soldiers that have spotted her. Even though she didn't realise that she was being shot at, at the time she still managed to survive the stampede of bullets that were trying to take her life.
When Ellie thought back about killing the soldiers she was unsure of whether she killed the soldiers out of love for her friends or hoping that it would help rescue her friends and family from the showgrounds, and the invasion – "Had I killed out of love for my friends, as a part of a noble crusade to rescue friends and family and keep our land free?" pg 216. The characters learn that this is their new life, it could be days, months or even years before everything goes back to the way it used to be. They also learn that if they're going to survive the invasion then they're going to have to do whatever is takes to do so, even if it means having to kill soldiers. The reader is encouraged to consider that when in a situation like the characters in the book are that you have to do anything in order tosurvive.
As discussed, John Marsden has written a great, adventurous, suspenseful story that shows different themes that the reader can try to apply to their own life and change their views on certain things. Leadership was one of the main themes that stood out to me in the book. It made me realise that even though sometimes when you don't want to be the leader that it's good to stand up and take the lead like Ellie and Homer did in most situations. Another theme that stood out to me was relationships. I know that the book was fictional but it still in a sense amazed me at how close they were and how Ellie and Lee were able to keep a strong relationship most of the time while the war was going on. The theme that stood out to me most in the book was survival. It was pretty unrealistic how they kept surviving almost every situation but it was good to keep the suspense of whether they would live or not anyway. It amazed me how much they fought to save their lives when before the war everything they've done they would have only ever read about it a book.
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