We all want to feel like bigger people, like we can prove ourselves and be just as great or better than the rest, but your pride can be your downfall. In Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth E. Wein, Rose Justice is a transport pilot who wishes to prove her fellow pilots wrong by being able to ‘taran’ a plane. To ‘taran’ is to knock a bomb away from its target, a heroic but tricky tactic in war. Rose was flying over to France and saw a bomb headed to France as well, maybe the common transport pilot could let it be, but Rose could not. She could not bear to let the beauty of France be damaged if she had the opportunity to stop it. She used all of her fuel to taran it successfully, but she drifted too far out, placing her in unknown territory with almost no fuel left to get out. In Rose Under Fire Wein uses flashbacks and dialogue to have Rose retell her experiences after she escaped them, and we are able to know things her past self doesn’t and can view how she’s changed. …show more content…
This usage of flashbacks lets us see how she’s recovered from certain events inside the camp. She’ll explain how she was punished and beaten for a mistake, then talk about her current physical condition. She mentions how she feels repulsed by her own image, and doesn’t recognize herself, or how she’s growing her hair back after it being consistently shaved off in the camp. We too are shown how she has gained habits, like feeling alone when she’s sleeping after she’s escaped, she finally has a bed to herself, but after six months of being crammed besides several other people, it feels empty to