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Loss Of Innocence In Tomorrow When The War Began By John Marsden

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‘It takes a second to kill, but a lifetime of regret to overcome it’. This essay will mainly focus on the loss of innocence. For loss of innocence to occur he or she must have been sent to war, the horrors they experience changes their lives for the worse leaving them traumatised for the rest of their lives. Therefore a soldier has loss their innocence when they commit one of these horrors of war and feel the true impact of it. The four texts I have chosen are: Rambo by Ted Kotcheff, Saving Private Ryan by Steven Spielberg, Full Metal Jacket by Stanley Kubrick, Tomorrow When The War Began by John Marsden.

Loss of innocence can occur through several ways, it may be intentional or unintentional, or due to series of events which finally unravel, …show more content…

Through the process they have to learn how to change from simple playful teenagers to hardened killing machines (soldiers) through witnessing the ‘horrors of war’ and as a result ‘loss of innocence’ is destined. Loss of innocence was mainly focused around Ellie who during a chase, decisively blows up a lawn mower with intention to harm or even kill, hence as a result she just throws her innocence away in a split second with a selfish judgement. The author does a good job of showing us how the war does not allow us to think straight but instinctive, leaving you traumatised by your own actions. “It was hard for me to believe that I, plain old Ellie, nothing special about me, middle of the road in every way, had probably just killed three people.”, “When I thought of it baldly like that: killed three people, I was so filled with horror. I felt that my life was permanently damaged, that I could never be normal again, that the rest of my life would just be a shell ”. I like the way the author shows us how Ellie realises it that it was her who created this scene and she could not blame anyone but herself, and would have to live with that burden for the rest of her life, allowing us to see how it might feel to have blood on your hands. Unlike the two other films Saving Private Ryan and Full Metal Jacket who lose their innocence through actually killing someone due to the stresses of the war, Ellie loses her innocence through intentionally killing someone else for her own survival. She had never been trained to kill unlike the others and had never been trained to use a gun.

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