FREE ESSAY ON DARKNESS BE MY FRIEND

DARKNESS BE MY FRIEND

Title: Darkness Be My Friend
Author: John Marsden
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Publishers
Publishing Date: 1996
Setting: This book is set in fairly modern times about 1990. I know this because the
teenagers speak the same way my friends and I do and dress just like people do now. I
also know this because of the way they describe the country town they live in. It sounds
just like the average country town in our time.
I think it is set is in a country town in Australia away from the cities. I think this
because of the way the place "Hell" is described and the way the teenagers talk like
Aussies. It also says that it is Australia. When they are in New Zealand Iain asks if
they will go back to Australia to help them.
I think it is very important where it is set because if it were set in America or another
place it would be a lot harder to be invaded. For one reason America and other places
have massive armies compared to Australia and could defend their country. Another reason
is that there is a much bigger population in America and other places and they would need
hundreds more soldiers to patrol areas. Another reason I think it is very important where
it is set is that if it was set in another country the place "Hell" would be described
differently because Australia is the only place I know that has such amazing land
features and such amazing landscapes. If it was described differently the whole book
wouldn't make you feel the way you do when you read it and you wouldn't get the eerie
feeling you get when they are in "Hell".
Plot: Darkness, Be My Friend is the fourth book in John Marsden's series consisting of
Tomorrow, When the War Began, The Dead of the Night and The Third Day, The Frost, in
which seven teenagers are in the middle of a violent war. Ellie, Fi, Kevin, Lee, Homer,
Robyn and Corrie go camping to a remote part of their district. They find their way into
a remote valley surrounded by dangerous cliffs and difficult terrain, where they are
completely safe and cut off from the rest of the world. When the teenagers return to
their homes, they find that all the families in the district have been abducted and
locked into the show grounds by armed soldiers who are taking over Australia. After
finding this, they perform many dangerous activities around the district to hold back the
enemy's progress. These including blowing up a bridge on a major convoy route and
attacking an important bay used for shipping supplies. 
In this book the teenagers set out from New Zealand to help a small group of New Zealand
soldiers attack the new airbase that has been built in the teenagers home town. The New
Zealand soldiers disappear without a trace and the teenagers have to attack the airbase
themselves…
The teenagers decide to look for the soldiers but end up getting trapped on an open
paddock with a few trees. The only thing they could do is climb up the trees and wait
till night. Once it was dark they got the horses in the paddock and rode them in pitch
dark and at full gallop away from where they were. They ended up at the school and stayed
there for a few days.
When they left the school the tried to attack the air base by putting sugar in the petrol
supply which was planned to make the planes crash while the were flying. Unfortunately It
was a huge disaster because they couldn't get the lids of the petrol trucks to put the
sugar in. 
Main Characters: Fi: Fi is beautiful, intelligent, kind to her friends and she is perfect
in every way. She is light and graceful, has beautiful skin and looks like she hasn't
done any hard physical work in her whole life. Fi is the kindest person but she is quick
to tell Ellie when she is being annoying or stupid. Fi has been in this story from the
first novel "Tomorrow when the war began". She is now Ellie's best friend since Robyn
died.
Kevin: The impression I got about Kevin is that he can be a real pain because he is a
chicken and he is always scared but generally he is out of peoples way because he likes
to be alone. Kevin has a really wide mouth, huge hands like spades and he thinks he is
really good but he has a lot going for him because he is intelligent. 
Lee: I think that all the other boys respect Lee because he is strong and is good at
everything he tries especially music. He has dark skin, a crew cut and brown eyes. He is
Ellie's boy friend and they are really close to each other. He is really kind and caring
and he would be a great friend to have.
Homer: Homer is a loud mouth who is crazy and likes destroying everything but when he is
in the company of girls such as Fi he is really quiet and always puts himself down. He
doesn't care about what people think about him except Fi because he likes her. He likes
hunting, music and swimming. He is always in trouble.
Ellie: Ellie is a very popular and everyone enjoys her company. The only bad thing about
her is that she expresses her feelings about people very freely on paper and she can hold
grudges on people, which annoy everyone. She is loud and bigger than the rest of the
girls but everyone respects her. She is brave, courageous smart and the unofficial leader
of the group. 
Theme: I think that this book is as much about adventure and survival as it is about
emotions, friendships and relationships. The main theme of this book is war. If it
weren't the whole book would be more like a "days of our lives' book with no action. It
would just be full of relationships, friendships and emotions which. 
Style: Throughout the book, John Marsden keeps a mix of adventure, excitement and
personal 'experience'. He looks deep into the mind of Ellie and how she feels. He writes
this well and in a style that I would imagine Ellie would use. The book is written as the
diary of Ellie the unofficial leader of the group. She speaks about her thoughts, her
relationships with the other members of the group and of her emotions about what she did
during the war. 
I was determined I wasn't going to get angry, so I ignored that. I didn't blame him in a
way. If only I could have understood what was going on in my own mind… but I found
that difficult at the best of times. Page 261
It was nothing to do with Lee. I still liked him a lot. I'd got over those feelings I'd
had ages ago, the negative feelings towards him. So it wasn't that. I thought that maybe
it had something to do with the boy in New Zealand, whose name I realized with a shock
I'd forgotten. It would come back to me, no doubt about that, but for the moment I
couldn't think of it at all. And I thought it was probably a lot to do with the dead man
whose house we had sneaked into - not that it was his house anyway - but the fact that we
were living in a dead man's house.
And, of course the fact that I'd killed him. I didn't know his name either. Weird: two
guys whom figured prominently in my life, and they were both nameless to Me. page 262
I found this novel very easy to get involved in because of the basic words and because of
the exciting things happening to people my own age, which start from the very beginning
of the book. In this novel there is very little humor that makes the novel serious and
scary but it has lots of action to keep you on the edge of your seat. 
Opinion: I really enjoyed this book because it was scary, exciting, action packed and
easy to read. This is the best series of books I have read and this book in the series is
probably the best one so far. I definitely recommend this book to any reader and I hope
they enjoy it as much as I have.