Journey's End By R. C Sherriff: Play Analysis

In the incredible book, All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, the reader follows Paul Baumer, a young man who enlisted in the war. The reader goes on a journey and watches Paul and his comrades face the sheer brutality of war. In this novel, the author tries to convey the fact that war should not be glorified. Through bombardment, gunfire, and the gruesome images painted by the author, one can really understand what it would have been like to serve on the front lines in the Great War. The sheer brutality of the war can be portrayed through literary devices such as personification, similes, and metaphors.

The defining characteristics of WW1 were its sickening violence and its immense death toll so, understandably, many pieces of war literature aim to present the horrors of war in order to unflinchingly reveal the true experiences of the soldiers. However, Journey’s End by R.C Sherriff and A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry also focus on the emotional aspect of war and the relationships it created and destroyed. The war forced people of every background to rely on and interact with each other while it also wrenched soldiers away from their families, introducing unique tensions between people that would not have existed otherwise. However, it is debatable which form, Sherriff’s play or Barry’s novel, is most effective in presenting these relationships.

Contrast is an integral part of everyday life. Without contrast, everything becomes one-dimensional and bland. In a traumatic experience, such as during a war, the very nature of it creates and amplifies these contrasts within the human spirit. Timothy Findley’s The Wars is an excellent example of how contrast is created. Some examples of these contrasts are kindness and cruelty, courage and cowardice, but the most important contrast created by Findley in the novel is the one between loyalty and betrayal.

Beginning my love of reading an early age, I was never the type of child who was drawn to fictional stories. As an 8 year-old child in West Virginia, I was recognized by the local library for my love of biographies, autobiographies and recollections of world events. This love has continued throughout my adult life, desiring to read novels such as “We Were Soldiers Once…and Young” by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore rather than watch the major motion picture “We Were Soldiers” starring Mel Gibson. Even though the motion picture received multiple awards, when reading the recollection of Mr. Moore’s accounts, the feeling of loss, distress, anxiety and fear can be felt in each word that he has written while reliving this horrendous war.

The true horrors of World War I are difficult to convey through traditional written word. David Malouf’s Fly Away Peter is a novella which uses relatable characters and stereotypes to provide a window for audiences to engage with warfare. This is enhanced by an array of poetic and descriptive language with vivid imagery to truly channel the anguish and confusion of soldiers in war to the audience. Juxtaposition is Malouf’s greatest asset, along with religious symbolism and allusion add subtext to the novella. These techniques allow Malouf to condemn war, create a novella of dualities and illuminate the true meaning life.

was not the truth. This book showed the harsh reality of war that most people

In war, both violence and fear revokes a soldier’s humanity. These elements of war cause a person to shut down their emotional instincts, which causes the soldiers to mature rapidly by taking innocence along with joy and happiness in life. Through the experiences that the soldiers encounter, their humanity is compromised. Thus, as war strips soldiers of their innocence, they start to become disconnected from themselves and others. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque illustrates the negative effects war has on a soldier’s humanity, through his use of Paul’s books and the potato pancakes by revealing the soldiers loss of emotion that causes them to become detached from society. Through these symbols they deepen the theme by visually depicting war’s impact on Paul. Paul’s books helps the theme by depicting how the war locked his heart to old values by taking his innocence. Likewise the potato pancakes reveal Paul’s emotional state damaged by the war with his lack of happiness and gratitude.

The topic of war is hard to imagine from the perspective of one who hasn't experienced it. Literature makes it accessible for the reader to explore the themes of war. Owen and Remarque both dipcik what war was like for one who has never gone through it. Men in both All Quiet on the Western Front and “Dulce Et Decorum” experience betrayal of youth, horrors of war and feelings of camaraderie.

Compare the ways in which R.C Sherriff and Sebastian Barry present relationships in war in Journey’s End and A Long Long Way. Through a play and a novel separated by seventy-six years, R.C Sherriff and Sebastian Barry have produced pieces that show how war created new relationships, destroyed old ones and introduced unique tensions between men and women that may not have existed otherwise. Both A Long Long Way and Journey’s

The text, ‘The Things They Carried', is an excellent example which reveals how individuals are changed for the worse through their first hand experience of war. Following the lives of the men both during and after the war in a series of short stories, the impact of the war is accurately portrayed, and provides a rare insight into the guilt stricken minds of soldiers. ‘The Things They Carried' shows the impact of the war in its many forms: the suicide of an ex-soldier upon his return home; the lessening sanity of a medic as the constant death surrounds him; the trauma and guilt of all the soldiers after seeing their friends die, and feeling as if they could have saved them; and the deaths of the soldiers, the most negative impact a war

It could be argued that the close proximity to the war means that Sherriff approaches the subject of war delicately, respecting the audience of the time who would have still been recovering from the devastation of war. In contrast Theatre Workshop’s ‘Oh What a Lovely War’ was written in the 1960s, a time of great social change and, arguably, a period in which the public was starting to become slightly more cynical, or least less sympathetic to war, having lived through two of them.

Journey’s End by R.C Sherriff is concerned with soldiers who faced life during WW1. It focuses on the fear, anxiety and horror the men suffered in the trenches. This anti war play was first performed and published in 1928; almost twenty years after the end of WW1 and the majority of the audiences would have who experienced the war either directly or indirectly. Many of them would have felt such as sympathy and empathy with the characters they were watching. Sherriff said: “I wanted to place on record one simple story of the war before memory died.” The play effectively exemplifies the author’s negative view toward the war and shows nothing but the unveiled truth. Unlike the deluded propaganda that people were facing, which became a strong

We have all seen or read about the political and social upheavals caused by war. Some may have even experienced it first-hand. Throughout history war has had negative psychological implications on those effected. However, there is no greater negative impact of war than the psychological and emotional turmoil that it causes individual soldiers.

On November 16th, I attended the Rollins College theatrical production of Sense and Sensibility. To preface, I particularly enjoyed this play and the romantic storyline that was elegantly portrayed by the wonderful actors and actresses. Like many other plays I’ve seen, this one was quite hard to follow at the beginning, as I had no clue where the story was taking off, but about 15 minutes into it, I began to realize the storyline that was developing. Additionally, I appreciated the “happily ever after” ending, as I felt like the story was going to end in heartbreak. In discussion of the ethical issues within the play I will delve into the aspects of greed, selfishness, and betrayal. Thus I’ll explore the ideals of greed within the play.

Hibbert is one of the main characters that war showed his fear. Hibbert faked the disease neuralgia because there is “no proof as far as” anyone can see. Neuralgia is a disease that cannot be proven, and Hibbert chose that disease so no one would be able to know that he is faking his sickness. Hibbert was afraid and wanted to return home however, he was not frightened of death because when Stanhope wanted to shoot him he said “go on, then, shoot!” which proves that Hibbert was not afraid of death but of the unknown. Hibbert was terrified from the fact that he might die in any second without knowing, and with no prior alert. Hibbert was trying to “wriggle off before the attack”, R.C Sherriff uses the verb “wriggle” to show how Hibbert was trying to twist and turn to get back home, and he wanted to find any excuse that would make him leave war before the attack because he does not know what might happen during the attack. The verb “wriggle” is commonly used for worms, a worm usually “wriggles”, in here R.C Sherriff is comparing Hibbert to a worm which is weak and gutless, the similarity is that Hibbert does not have the guts to go up the trenches and fight with the other