Continuity in life is also shown in the way that, even as people are dying and the world seems have to gone absolutely mad, in other places animals continue to thrive and life really does go on, through everything. The belief that life is cyclic is best portrayed by Malouf in the structure of the book. The novel beings in the swamp in Queensland; the swamp is a kind of paradise. Malouf evokes this feeling through his descriptions of the swamp; he glorifies nature, images are lush and perfect. When the Jim arrives in Europe before the war there is a sense of innocence in danger, the men do not know what is going to happen and are rather nave. After the fighting beings all innocence is lost, it is like hell in the trenches. In the final stage of the novel - back in Queensland, on the beach - we are again reminded of the eternalness and continuity of all life. It is no mistake that Malouf writes his novel in this way. It is how he subconsciously represents the idea of the cyclic nature of life. The migration of the birds is also an important factor in showing the readers how cycles occur everywhere in nature and that it is only natural for human life to follow the same pattern. The idea that life is cyclic also assures that reader that death is not necessarily as horrible as it seems to be if we all go back to the peaceful place from where we came.
One of the key things that Jim realizes about himself is that "he had been living, till he came here in a state of dangerous innocence."" Jim's trip to Brisbane signals his "fall from innocence-, as is first exposed to the war and to the "real- world. In the midst of all the madness and propaganda that surrounds Jim he begins to feel drawn to war and to the pressures of signing up. Malouf's use the metaphor of a tilting slope and the impending "stampede- only seems to enforce the certainty of this. In the end, it is not Jim's father, nor a question of patriotism that drives him to join up.