“It is the things you cannot see coming that are strong enough to kill you.”, “You gotta make decisions. You gotta keep making decisions, even if they’re wrong decisions, you know. If you don’t make decisions, you’re stuffed”, “You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.”
Fearing for your life, doing everything in your power to stay away from the terrifying danger you are facing. The nature of survival was demonstrated in these four movies and books, “Rabbit-Proof Fence” by Philip Noyce, “life of pi” by Ang Lee, “My Sister’s Keeper” by Nick Cassavetes and “Touching the Void” by Joe Simpson. All demonstrating the ways of survival through to physical to emotional.

The nature of survival was shown in the film the “Rabbit-Proof Fence” directed by Philip Noyce. The first aspect of survival that was shown is having a positive attitude . This was shown when Molly, Gracie and Daisy were captured by the white men and put into Moore river camp for half and quarter cast kids. Molly stayed positive that they were going to get out of the camp. The viewer hears molly say “we are leaving” and when do they do leave Gracie says “tracker gonna get us” but molly snaps and say “tracker not gonna get us” another time molly used staying positive to survive is when they were near their home land and she sees the spirit bird and she doesn’t give up even though she’s exhausted because she is “positive” that she is nearly home back in Jigalong.
Another aspect of survival that is shown in the film “Rabbit Proof Fence” is to use the resources around you to assist your survival. A way this is presented is when the three girls left Moore river camp and they used the rain (resource) to hide their tracks and the darkness to stay unseen from the tracker man. Another way using resources to assist your survival was eating of the land, Mr A O Neville got a report saying that the only tracks they could find of the run-away girls was rabbit carcasses, which means that the girls had been eating of the land to survive this shows that using the resources around you can have such a massive positive affect, even if it means you have to do extra work to save yourself.

The nature of survival was shown in this film “Life of Pi” directed by Ang Lee. The first aspect of survival that was shown is finding safety. This is first shown when the boat starts to sink, Pi gets out of the freezing sea water fast and his first reaction was to find a drifting lifeboat where he climbed onto it for safely to stop him drowning in the waves. The viewer will see a high angle long shot of Pi screaming for his “Mama!”, “Papa!” this angle was shown so that the viewer can see how helpless Pi is in the storm at sea watching the ship sink. This shows that finding safety can help because there can be dangerous obstacles that get in your way. So by finding safety can decrease the stress on your situation.
This can relate to the other ways of survival in the film “Rabbit-Proof Fence” because using the resources around you to assist your survival when you are in need and finding safety are similar because you can use your resources to find safety, like lighting a fire or finding food.

A second aspect that was shown in the film. “Life of Pi” is to make quick decisions. This was shown when Pi realised that there was a tiger and hyena on board his life raft. There were other animals so Pi needed to make quick decisions not only to keep himself alive but to keep the orangutan and zebras. The viewer will see in this scene Pi trying to fend of the hyena from attacking the zebra. Sadly the zebra died but Pi managed to keep himself alive by making the quick decision to stay far away from where the hyena and tiger were. This shows that being able to make quick decisions in life threatening situations helps a lot because it pays off and will make you feel more comfortable about the position you are facing.
Survival strategy “make quick decisions” is similar to the first aspect of survival “finding safety” in the film “life of Pi” because they are both about getting out of the tough situation.

The nature of survival was shown in the film, “My sister’s keeper” directed by Nick Cassavetes. The first aspect of survival shown is not losing hope, mum Sara demonstrated this. Sara shows how she emotionally tries to survive Kate’s cancer. There is not just one time this is shown, since Kate was diagnosed with acute Promyelocytic leukaemia Sara has been exhibiting the emotional survival of not “losing hope” in Kate. this is displayed when Kate’s sister Anna does not want to give her anymore parts to her body. So Kate has to not lose hope and keeps trying to convince Anna that it is the right thing to do, and that it is saving her sister’s life. In this scene the viewer will see a high angle shot of Sara yelling at Kate about the situation. This shows that not losing hope, can help in and survival situation but in this case it helps emotional survival and teaches us that, having hope can always make you feel safer and more comforting.

A second aspect in the film “My Sisters Keeper” is not giving up. Anna showed this. Her sister was dying from cancer and nothing was helping, Kate was fine with the idea of passing away, she had enough of the pain. So Anna stepped in saying to her mum she was done with helping Kate (Kate’s command) and she did not give up even though her mum Sara would say she has to help. But Anna never stopped fighting for her sister. One time Anna showed this is was when her mum would not agree that they can’t help Kate, so she didn’t give up and got a lawyer against her own family, and won. This shows that set goals and don’t give up in yourself you can get something successful out of it. Like Anna did not give up on herself and what she was trying to pursue.

The nature of survival was shown in the text “Touching the Void” written by joe Simpson. The first aspect of survival shown is that sometimes you might need to put your own life before others to survive. This was shown when Joe Simpson was hanging of the side of a cliff with a shattered leg and Simon was holding on to him. A snow storm came and Simon knew that if he kept holding onto the rope both of them would fall to their death but if he cut the rope then Joe would die but Simon himself would stay alive. In the text Simon says “I felt the first shivers of fear. Snow hit me again from behind, surging over and around me. My thighs moved down fractionally. The avalanche pushed me forward and filled the seat behind my back. Oh god! I’m coming off…… the knife! The thought came out of nowhere. Of course, the knife. Be quick, come on, get it…there was no guilt, not even sorrow” this shows that it may seem bad to think that you should put yourself before other people’s lives but if you know that whatever the situation is and you might die, your life is worth fighting for.

A second aspect of “Touching the Void” is “knowing your surroundings” Joe Simpsons showed this when he was trying to make his way down to the camp by himself, dehydrated and with a severely broken leg. Knowing your surroundings helped Joe because towards the end of his journey he was ready to give up. Until he started to smell faeces, and realised where he was. The text states Simon saying “I sniffed my mitts , flinching with repugnance at the stench. It took a long time to sink in, why am I sitting in poo?….i knew where I was but seemed incapable of acting on it… the sharp stench caught in my nostrils, and my head suddenly cleared. All I had to do was shout!” this shows that by knowing your surroundings and where you can find help or your way back to safety.

People will do anything to ensure they survive, there are countless ways and techniques of survival which can be emotionally, physically, mentally and socially. A person has to be focused and determined in situations that could affect if they are going to live or not. I have demonstrated eight ways of this, in the books or films of “Rabbit-proof fence” “Life of Pi” “My Sisters Keeper” and “Touching the Void” being able to react and respond to death or treat can be challenging but going out of your comfort zone for this can change your life, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!