Fly Away Peter - What does Jim learn from the War?

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What does Jim Learn from his experiences of war?

        In the novel, “Fly Away Peter,” the character Jim’s entire vision of life changes from the moment the war enters his life. As well as him learning of possibilities entirely new to him, Jim’s view of life and an individuals place in it develops through his experiences in Europe. In this essay, I will explore the discoveries that Jim makes over time on his journey from the sanctuary that is Australia into unknown hell of the war, and how he makes the change from a youth at the start of the novella to a man who feels “immeasurably old.”

        At the start of the novella, Jim’s view of the world is limited. Australia is a womb like sanctuary to him – a seemingly timeless place that both changes and always remains the same, where Jim is protected from the harsh realities of life and can pursue his love of birds. The land is literally a sanctuary for the birds but also a sanctuary for him. Jim holds the birds in wonderment: they are so small and could be crushed by him without him thinking, yet they are able to see the entire world in their tiny eyes and store in their mind a map of this world, so that when they next migrate, they can remember their way. This world of the impotence that Jim feels he has in comparison to the power of birds is the one that is established quickly in the opening chapters of the novella, one that Jim has known for as long as he can remember. In the opening paragraph, the bi-plane flies clumsily through the sky. Its intrusion in the sanctuary shows that Jim is uneasy about change and this new phenomenon is disturbing for him. This is the first sign in the novel of the importance of understanding and accepting change, something that Jim has not yet grasped. Jim has a map in his head of that landscape that surrounds him. He sees it on two levels: his own and the birds’, which unfold like a map. This shows that Jim does have vision but that it only covers what he has known for so long. His vision of the world around him, like the grass close up, is “blurred,” and he needs move farther out to focus on the larger picture in order to give his smaller picture more perspective. The birds parallel the journey that Jim is about to embark on: he will soon leave the nest and migrate north, away from his sanctuary.

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        Jim first senses that some change must happen when he sees the Dunlin. Although thinks that the Dunlin has “broken a barrier that was laid down a million years ago” and so broken away from itself and its identity, this bird shows him that as there are birds he has never seen before, so are there are experiences that are unknown to him. This vision of Jim’s develops further when he takes to a trip in the plane. This “monstrous cage” that he knew was being used as an instrument of war, confirms what he imagined looking down from this ...

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