When the War Begins
For the narrator, the war begins in the middle of night, and it arrives in the form of imagery. “The noise faded quickly, till I could no longer hear it. But something remained. The air didn’t seem as clear, as pure. There was a new atmosphere. The sweetness had gone; the sweet burning coldness had been replaced by a new humidity. I could smell the jet fuel.” The narrator is unaware of the full implications of what she hears. At this point she can only literally smell the difference between today and yesterday. Something has changed significantly, and this is the only thing she and the others will know for the time being.
Robyn’s Duality
The narrator begins describing the character of Robyn by insisting that she is the quiet and serious type. And then she begins describing this same person playing netball as her teammate. “The moment the game started she was like a helicopter on heat swooping and darting around everywhere, bumping people aside if she had to. If you got weak umpires Robyn could do as much damage in one game as an aerial gunship. Then the game would end, and Robyn would be quietly shaking everyone’s hands,” This is imagery as foreshadowing. Over the course of the events of the story as things become much more serious than a mere game, Robyn will be shown as a person of conflicting duality at many levels of her personality.
Political Differences
One of Robyn’s exhibitions of duality is her insistence that Australia bears partial guilt for being invaded by a less financially secure country that it had the wealth to assist but chose not to help. At the other extreme of this perspective sits the narrator’s own father whose perspective is forwarded through imagery. “I did let myself assume that my parents were being held somewhere, against their will. I pictured them, Dad, frustrated and angry, like a bull in a pen, refusing to accept what had happened, refusing to accept anyone else’s authority…He wouldn’t want to know what their language was, or their ideas, or their culture.” This descriptive prose provides enough information to offer some strong hints about the political ideology of Ellie’s father. One can assume with confidence that he is ultra-conservative, xenophobic, and probably racist.
According to Ellie
Ellie, the narrator, is torn between two boys. The imagery she uses to describe both says it all. Lee: “when I looked at his face and eyes it was like looking into the Atlantic Ocean. I wanted to know what I could find in there, what interesting secrets he knew.” Homer: “I didn’t want to spend hours with him talking about life; I wanted to spend hours with him making animal noises, like sighs and grunts.” Of course, Ellie is just a teenager, and she finds herself suddenly in a situation she never imagined, the kind of situation which changes perceptions quickly. Those interesting secrets to extricate from Lee just might possibly be expressed as inarticulate grunts as well as intellectual flights of fancy.
