How has the prescribed text you have studied conveyed how knowledge attitudes and beliefs of characters have been affected by the transition of going ‘Into the World’?
How would you and your family cope with a major tragedy? Would you be bitter, argue or cling together? And most importantly how would you even begin to move on with your life?
Throughout the book ‘The Story of Tom Brennan’, each character deals with the tragedy in many different ways. Tom becomes depressed and begins to blame himself, he rejects that Dan, his older brother, has committed a crime and is sent to jail, ‘didn’t they realise we weren’t like everyone else here?’ (Page 134). Kylie, Tom’s younger sister, become rebellious and felt that everyone in their new town, Coghill, would have found out their secret eventually and it wasn’t fair to keep it hidden. ‘That was the thing about my sister, she’d become tough, like I didn’t know her anymore.’ (Page 29). ‘In many ways she’d released me, pushing me into my own fear.’ (Page 190). ‘In some ways, part of me almost admired her guts’ (Page 185). Tess, Tom’s mum, is affected by it the most; she refuses to accept that it’s happened and feels that her son has been ripped away from her. ‘“Well Tess,’ Kath started, “I’m sorry about that, but my son can’t even turn his neck to see his back.”’ (Page 155). She begins to live in denial and won’t talk about it. ‘Come on girlie, don’t be so self indulgent. Life goes on.’ (Page 4). Daniel becomes depressed and realises the consequences of his actions. “He’d been absolutely ripped to shreds. He didn’t sleep, eat, hardly spoke, never smiled. The only thing he did was cry. He cried buckets.” (Page 121).
The journey of transitioning into the world began when they were forced to move away from their home in Mumbilli and had to live with their grandmother in Coghill. For all of them this became a massive hurdle that they had to overcome to transition successfully into the world. They had to