In “Oh what a lovely war” Sir Douglas Haig is caricatured by Littlewood to emphasise certain features about him, like how he is a stupid general, who has a total disregard for human life. The most blatant example of this is where Haig is reporting to others about the progress made on the battle field after a big push, and he says “first reports from the clearing station state that our casualties are only some sixty thousand: most slight. The wounded are very cheery indeed”. The simple idea of sixty thousand people who have been ripped apart by bullets or bombs being “very cheery” is somewhat bizarre. The way Haig uses his words really emphasises his stupidity and selfishness; for example “only sixty thousand dead” really does make him sound like he couldn’t give a care in the world for those people. What he is really saying is that as long as we win I don’t care how many people die as long as we win and I’m alive at the end, and so making it almost sound like the whole war is a game or a joke. The way Haig is portrayed would make the modern audience see the connection between him and the war in Iraq and George Bush. For the audience at the time it lets them see supporting evidence for what they had heard from people who had come back; and they would feel betrayed that the leaders had treated people like that.
When Haig is talking about how the wounded are cheery, there is a news panel behind him on the wall saying “two and a half million killed on the home front.” This uses irony to show Haig for what he truly is. Whilst he is talking about how successful it has been and there are the true facts behind him. Whilst he is talking about how only sixty thousand have died the audience can see that he is deluded and that he has a serious disregard for life. For both audiences they would become cynical towards Haig and whatever he says for the entirety of the play.
During the war supplies and equipment became in very short supply so training up new recruits was a problem. In the play Littlewood uses rifle training to show the stupidity of the whole system; although it is made to look funnier by the way clowns are acting it out and they are using things like umbrellas. Using this hilarious image Littlewood makes the audience also see the rather serious side by using burlesque. As the sergeant calls out to the men “swing over to the left and bash his head in” any audience, either at the time or nowadays, would laugh but most would soon after realise that they are laughing at people being taught to kill. Zooming out from the play and looking at the reaction of the audience many would be horrified to realise to true meaning of what they are laughing at. This is one of the few serious things in the play although in a lot of it there is use of mocking something rather serious.
Throughout the play there is the use of reliance on religion by the leaders of the army. There is also the disregard for life shown by Haig which really does come to its most obvious when back home in Britain a chaplain is leading a prayer and he says “now brethren, tomorrow being Good Friday , we hope that god will look kindly on our attack on Arras,”. In the prayer there is no comment of saving human lives but for victory. The use of war and religion in the same context really is very hypocritical. The audience in the 1960s wouldn’t be able to question their religion when they hear the things the chaplain has to say. Nowadays people would question society rather than God but many would feel that it had a lot in common with the way the Americans are fighting the Iraq war.
In the play songs are sung to the tune of well known hymns from the time. For example there was the song “Forwards Joe Soap’s Army” to the tune of Onward Christian Soldier where it takes something serious and ridicules it, or parody. The song goes on about how they are “marching without fear” and “with our commander at the rear” which really does sum up the way the hierarchy went during the war, with the lower down the order you where the closer you were to the front line. In the song it talks about death and loss but the hymn that it’s based on is about love and happiness so a contradiction. The audience at the time would have found this rather insulting as almost all the population at the time in England were Christian, so using a song that they felt represented hope would have been outrageous, but with the variation of cultures in England now most people can now see the more complex part of it. This whole style of taking something entirely serious and making it a joke is used though out the entirety of the play.
Through out the war people at home in the countries involved in the war felt very similar about the war. This idea is supported by Littlewood showing the conversations of the English and the German wives at the time with husbands fighting. In one instance you have the English saying “get away! Who?”, “the Germans, it’s in this mornings papers”. And in the other you have the Germans saying exactly the same thing but in German. Being similar to English in it roots the German is understandable to most. The showing to everyone that both sides had the same kind of conversations told them that they weren’t so different to themselves. This reality check of saying they weren’t evil and that they where just the same as anyone else would have make the audience at the time think of kitchen sink dramas where two people arguing over the fence about something. The modern audience would also see this but call it a soap opera. Making the audience see that although the slight differences, they were virtually the same people fighting over a little problem would make them feel that the whole was war was maybe not necessary.
Near the start of the play Littlewood gets the audience to question themselves as to if they know why the war actually started. She does this by the use of sarcasm when an Austro-Hungarian and a Serb talk about the murder of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand. When one asks the other about who did it they both conclude that “it was either a Catholic, a protestant, a Jew, or a Serb, or a Croat, or a young Czech liberal, or an Anarchist or a syndicalist. In any case it means war” This is mocking the start of the war as an assassination of a man everybody hated so what is the fuss about would make both the audiences see how controversial and unjust the start of the war was.
The use of satirical devices by Joan Littlewood makes people who supported the war question their reasons for it and make them see the pacifist side of it. For the people who where against the war get more support from other people who have been persuaded.
David Busfield
