Tomorrow When The War Began Analysis

It Is When We Are Challenged That Our True Instinct Kicks In.

Fight or flight, attack or run, injure or flee. It is when we are challenged that our true survival instinct kicks in. The survival instinct can be seen as fighting and not fleeing or vise versa. However, the depiction of survival doesn’t matter to us during this speech. What matters today is that the idea that when we are challenged, that our true survival instinct kicks in.

The book ‘Tomorrow When the War Began’ recalls, a story of eight ordinary teenagers, morphing into the ultimate survivalists. They fight against wicked tyrants, that are attempting to invade Australia. They try to bring back their family and save Australia. This story has some prime examples of how the true survival instinct kicks in when we are challenged.
When a dangerous situation presents itself, your survival instinct automatically kicks in.
John Marsden expresses this concept in the scene when Ellie and Fi we relaxing, waiting for a signal from the other two when they spot an enemy patrol and immediately spring into action. ‘There was a huge old gum tree right in front of us. I was so nervous that it seemed to be the only thing I could see. My eyes and mind focused entirely on it; nothing else existed for me at that moment. I climbed it like a possum, scratching my hand but not feeling any pain.’ As you can see although, Ellie and Fi were not expecting danger, they immediately went into survival mode, when they saw the patrol. That is the survival instinct kicking in, regardless of what they were previously doing, John Marsden’s simile of the possum shows how the character almost became ‘something else’ when the dangerous situation presented itself. They did anything they could to survive. And if it was any of us we would probably do the
same.

The book also shows us that when we are faced with challenges, our survival instinct is so strong that we become oblivious to anything else - even the amount of danger we are in. For example after Ellie ‘scrambled...down the ladder’ of the petrol tanker and started running for cover, she was oblivious to everything around her, unaware that they were shooting at her. Her mind was only concentration on surviving. As you can see from this scene, when the survival instinct takes over, there is no stopping it, everything else takes second place. John Marsden’s use of imagery painted a picture of Ellie’s determination to survive.

I believe, our ability to spring into action and fight for our survival regardless of our surroundings has been strongly illustrated in John Marsden’s, ‘Tomorrow, When the War Began’. Not only the reasons above but also the complete story line, which is the juxtaposition of the ordinary teenagers, in the beginning of the book, to ultimate survivalists at the end, are classic examples that when we are challenged, that our true survival instinct kicks in.