Harry Mazer's The Last Mission

• What are their outstanding qualities? Does the author give any indication as to how or why the character developed these qualities?

The first aspect I will examine is the setting of all texts – how it impacts on the way in which the main characters act and the consequences it has on their behaviour.

What is (are) the setting(s) of the play? What effect do these have on the plot?

This inescapability of destruction with war is highlighted at the beginning of the novel, when the protagonist, Billy Prior, despite being ‘haunted by the suffering he sees,’ is determined to return to the front lines in France. Standing on a beach in`Scarborough, he is presented to the reader as a character haunted by his experience and therefore inexplicably damaged despite his current lack of physical injury. The beach itself is likened to the ‘The Front,’ highlighting Prior’s inability to escape from the war, his thoughts drifting from the scene in front of him to his memories and the realities of conflict. German snipers were told to, “Look for the thin knees”. Prior is constantly confronted by the realities of being killed or injured upon returning to the front and yet is still determined to go, suggesting either that war is about power rather than war itself and that man who fight in war so entranced by the power available that they do not wish to stay away, or that the young men are so changed by the war that they are incapable of living a mundane life afterwards.

Therefore, I will be encouraging you to explore some of the ideas presented in the novel as you feel they pertain to you. In class we will focus on the structure of the novel, the symbolic meaning of the novel’s events and the philosophical ideas the novel explores. Your homework assignment will be to consider all of these things through personal response journals.

Describing a character can be a little tricky. But from a novel it can be a little easier

The reader then realizes how living in an environment in the countryside affects a child’s life and point of view. The fact that Scout was born and raised in the southern countryside changes the way she perceives Miss Caroline’s story. Instead of hearing the story and finding it interesting and entertaining, she just ome back to reality and makes the reader view Miss Caroline’s stories as unrealistic and boring. Scouts environment changes her point of view when Walter Cunningham arrives to eat at her house.

The second great war of the twentieth century had already been turning the world into a horrific mess of war crimes and atrocities for three years. Although the war was an absolute nightmare, this did not deter young Jack, whom ever since it had started in 1939 had been trying to join up the Royal Australian Air Force and fly with the best of them. Jack had those three long years to come of age and to study every book on aviation he could get his hands on. Jack had spent his entire life by the Snowy River, where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough. Now Jack was ready to depart, to leave his home behind and join up the RAAF to defend his country. Despite the fact that he was the youngest of all the cadets he never once quaked in

5. State the setting and describe how the setting affects the plot and/or major theme.

Jack confided in his sister that he wanted to join the armed forces in order to escape the mediocre, sheltering homelife that they lived in. He wants to be independent from his father, but he is ultimately unable to gain a place in the military without his Rudyard’s help, much to Jack’s dismay. Showing great potential from the day he arrives at basic training, Jack even practices after the workday is done to improve his shooting skills. Even after being promoted to Lieutenant, he still works alongside his men. Jack has a calm demeanor, but remains in control of his battalion, which proves to be a valuable style of leadership when times are tough in the trenches. But the life of young man with such great potential is cut short at only eighteen years and one day old. Jack was unlucky, but even the soldiers that survived the battle suffered immense shellshock after the War was over, and many could barely function on their own throughout the rest of their lives. The War affected an entire generation of young men in Britain, and at what cost? Though they were ultimately victorious, the war that was supposed to end all wars did not achieve its goal, as the Britain would go through yet another time of bloodshed decades

3rd Grade: Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions

Choose one story in which the setting is significant and discuss how the setting contributes to the central meaning of the story.

Write one – two paragraphs describing the setting(s) of the literary work and the settings impact on the development of this text. (Remember that setting is place and time.)

In conclusion, the function of the setting of the novel is to depict the moral of the story, which is that through sheer determination and effort, the heroine is eventually able to achieve exactly what she knew she needed in order to feel fulfilled in

3. What can you determine about the setting of the story (place, time, culture). What does the setting add the story's meaning.