FINAL VERSION Noah N. Essay on Themes

 

Analysis of Hell Island

Themes play an important role within texts as they help to develop the storyline and convey a message. Within the novel Hell Island there are many significant themes, two being teamwork and knowledge. Teamwork is essential not only in this novel but also in real life. However capable, great and talented a single person may be, one must never forget teamwork because it is indispensable to success. It is also importantas there are many examples of teamwork shown in this novel. Knowledge also played a huge role in the novel as it was crucial to the success of the five central characters. Physical and psychological toughness is not the only strength and greatness that soldiers can attain. Experience and education is far more important. Both of these themes were significant in the novel Hell Island.

Teamwork was profoundly important in the formation of the text. Teamwork is included in the list of employability skills which everyone needs to have and apparently helps improve workplace relations and accomplish tasks more quickly. Japanese people are the best at teamwork. Only one great leader is needed and the rest of the team just has to be attentive and follow orders. American and Chinese individuals all believe that they themselves are great. This leads to no one listening to orders and the falling apart of a group. Individualism is a character of American people. Teamwork is not just a group working together. It requires a lot of things such as the spirit of cooperation and the luck of having a good guide. Selfishness, individualism and crudeness are all unwanted characters in a team.Working with people who have more experience and skills can also give the new inexperienced people an opportunity to learn from them. This was shown with Astro and the way he learned skills from the various other elite team members. When a team works well, all members will develop something called team spirit. Action novels often place emphasis on teamwork as it can positively affect young people to work well with all kinds of people. They can develop it in real life situations but can prepare or have an image of what successful teamwork is through reading. The changing relationship between the five main characters was also interesting and kept the reader’s attention. A team is created because they want to accomplish shared goals. In the beginning of the novel, the four teams were trying to accomplish shared goals. Their goal was to investigate and solve any problems that had caused the USS Nimitz and the two escort cruisers to lose contact with the Pacific Command at Pearl Harbour. The Delta team had a slightly different mission, which was to investigate and solve the problems that might be affecting Grant Island’s communications centre. The four teams therefore could not become unified because they had too many differences. The rolling leapfrog formation done by Schofield, Mother, Astro and Bigfoot was a great example of the team spirit that had already developed between them. They were able to defeat twenty of the gorillas with only four people. Sanchez and Hulk were left out from this manoeuvre because they were in the rear.

Teamwork was a dominant theme throughout the novel. It was more important than any other theme in the story.The novel would not have been interesting without the teamwork shown by the main characters. Practically everything that the characters of the novel did was somehow related to it. People in the US Special Forces units are usually trained to have abilities beyond normal soldiers.Normal soldiers are despised by a proportion of the population of America mainly because most of them do not have a good background and have not been educated well enough. Anyone who doesn’t continue with their studies and joins the army is considered as this. Members of the Special Forces train rigorously throughout their career and are required to perform operations which other normal soldiers cannot. They have extremely good eyesight and physical capabilities. They are trained to be psychologically strong. Great endurance of everything related to humans seems to be one of their goals. Although people in the Special Forces units are tough and rather scary, most of them still have much of the characteristics and skills which the ordinary people have. Many Special Forces soldiers will treat others kindly and with respect. They are harsh to themselves. Although they are all supposedly skilled, many of them make mistakes and require others to find them a way out of difficult situations. The leader of the team finds the way out of difficult situations and utilises the team members in the best way possible. Schofield was giving out all the orders from the beginning to the end. All four of the team members had all directly or indirectly asked Schofield for help at some point in the novel. Schofield trusted Mother the most and always made her the leader of the other group when they split into smaller groups. Everything in the novel moved around teamwork.Teamwork is a concept which is commonly known to people as the activity of working well together as a team. This is added to in the novel and becomes something more than just an activity.

The traits of every character in the novel were shown effectively through the way they worked as a team. When a person works by themselves, they rarely have the chance to communicate with others. When the workload is shared by a team, people will combine all that they know and reach a resolution. We learn from the novel that Sanchez is sly and sarcastic. He is a senior officer and no longer just obeys the leader. He goes against some orders that Schofield gives and does things which Schofield does not approve of. He also regularly covers the rear, which shows his unconscious desire to keep as far away as possible from Schofield. He is doubtful of Schofield’s orders and always likes to check everything for himself. He does cover the rear quite well, as shown in the way he locked the door of the wall dividing the hangar bays and also blew the lock. As long as people talk and act they will show their character. If a person is silent and does not take any action, nothing can be known about their individual traits. Individual ways of communication and action are best shown through teamwork. Mother and Astro were the most loyal followers of Schofield. Mother had already worked with Schofield on numerous missions but Astro was new. Astro followed Schofield’s orders throughout the course of the novel. High emotional intelligence (interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence) of every team member is required for a good team to be created. The five team members who survived the ordeal all demonstrated their ability to monitor and regulate their own and the other’s feelings.

Teamwork is not always related to positive stuff. Groups essentially do the same thing and discriminate against those who are different in some way. United together, groups gain power that individuals do not have and do bad things. The DARPA scientists and the Delta team worked together to do unfavourable things. They should have at least let the five marines leave Grant Island alive. They only thought in their own interests and were selfish. They wanted Project Stormtrooper to be completely successful. The quality of the team members alters the overall standard of the team. The Delta team were always glory-seeking and assumed that they were in charge. This is a case of the misunderstanding of what teamwork actually is. The real teamwork was shown by the five main characters.

Knowledge is one of the main themes of the story. It drives the events along.I have heard of the saying knowledge is power. In Latin it is scientiapotentiaest. With knowledge and education, one’s potential or abilities in life will increase. The only true power is knowledge. There are many interpretations to it. In the novel Hell Island, the person with the most knowledge was Schofield. His knowledge was relevant to their task. His grandfather Lieutenant Michael Schofield had been the leader of the small team of special-mission Marines that had closed the ocean gates of Grant Island in 1943. Knowledge alone cannot guarantee success. Wisdom is required to be able to correctly apply the knowledge. Knowledge and wisdom are different things. Wisdom is the ability to make good and sensible decisions and give helpful advice based on knowledge and experience. Sanchez saw the wisdom of Schofield’s words when Schofield did not allow Sanchez to use a flare gun and instead used a glow stick. If Sanchez had used his flare gun inside the room filled with explosives the flare might of have ignited the pile of boxes. Knowledge is required everywhere around the world. In this novel, knowledge is the saviour of the five Marines. Most of the main complications were solved with knowledge.

Knowledge was a predominant theme throughout the novel.The climax was when Schofield said, ‘Knowledge is a wonderful thing. Now that we’ve figured some of this out, it’s time to turn the tables.’ A group of silly Marines would almost certainly have been wiped out by the gorillas. Luck plays a part as well in the survival of the soldiers. No one likes to read about how a team made mistakes and couldn’t solve their problems. Experience and education cannot act alone. Adaptation is also required to overcome new difficulties. They had to concentrate on themselves and know their enemy at the same time. Physically, the five characters were no match for the gorillas. They had learned from their experience that they would not succeed by fighting the gorillas directly. Intelligence was the only way to defeat them. Those gorillas had limits whereas the Marines did not. The grafted microchip in the gorillas only had a small amount of experience and knowledge because they relied heavily on orders sent by the scientists. The team of five had gained inspiration from the suicide ploy that the Japanese people had devised. They were able to lure the gorillas into one of the ammunition chambers and flood the entire place. They were then able to escape unlike the Japanese.

Knowledge is well represented by the different characters of Hell Islandthrough their teamwork. We learn how much they know about various things and how well their thinking skills and problem-solving skills are. Finding out what people are like and what they are good at is a skill that can be easily attained. Sanchez had given away the team’s position when he secretly communicated with the Airborne team. He did this even though he had been told many times that this would give away their own position. There were many occasions when Schofield was required to think fast. Time could not be wasted during the heated battle against the apes. Only after the drowning of the CH-53 Super Stallion helicopter was Schofield able to clear his mind and get to the submarine docking door. Once inside, he realised how many things were working and later devised the plan that brought them the outcome that all of them had been secretly hoping for. Every single member of the team always used their own knowledge to check what the leader had ordered.

Teamwork and knowledge were vital in the development of the story and in ensuring that the novel had the reader’s attention until the end.The novel Hell Islandascertained the importance of teamwork and intelligence in everyday life. A novel should not only provide entertainment but also provide some food for thought. Real life situations may require working as a group to accomplish a shared goal and efficient application of knowledge that had been gathered from previous education and experiences. Young people who read this short novel will be able to use these skills in everyday life.Themes are an important part in the making of stories as the story itself would differ if the theme(s) were different.

 

Noah Nishihara Homegroup 909