R.C Sherriff has a good use of lighting throughout Journey’s End, as only 3 sources of light are used: - the two candles which are held up by two empty bottles, and the faint glimmer of moonlight, I think that this particular use of light is being used to create a realistic and dramatic atmosphere in Journey’ End, and that at night-time, when most of the fighting has stopped, that the moon is quite symbolic, and in some ways provides a symbol of hope and solitude in the war and that they think that they are going to make it, Sherriff changes the lighting throughout the play to indicate whether it is day or night in the trenches, and also the lighting symbolises life and hope in the trenches
Some of the sounds in Journey’s End depict a real picture of what it must have been like for some of the soldiers that went through WW1, for example, “the Guns are heard rumbling again”. This use of sound is used throughout Journey’s End and we get to know some of the psychological turmoil that the soldiers are going through (particularly Stanhope), without there being any need for a scene full of fighting, though one is written into Journey’s End but no fighting is actually seen.
The Use of props in Journey’s End also plays a good part in the building blocks of this play, as such items as Stanhope’s bottle of whiskey, the soldiers uniform and Gas masks, and that the soldiers were only allowed their bare essentials and no luxuries. This plays a vital part in the audience’s interpretation of each character, and their individual personalities. The issue of Food in the Trenches is raised several times throughout Journey’s End, And with a Rationing System back home in England you can only imagine what the food and water was like in the trenches, for example when Lieutenant Osborne and Captain Hardy open the play of Journey’s End we see Hardy offering Osborne a Drink, but after Osborne agrees to have a drink, we immediately know that something is wrong with the water as Hardy passes both the jug of water and the bottle of whiskey to Osborne and says “Don’t have too much water, it’s rather strong today”. And he was right as they used to put some sort of disinfectant in the water to kill off the microbes that were in it. The aspect that Sherriff has captured by using small props is that by using a small item/object you can achieve a bigger effect and that in turn makes the whole play of Journey’s End many times more realistic than it would have been without, and the use of humour in this scene and others (i.e.; “mind my sock”) is used to make a serious point and increases the realism of Journey’s End.
Captain Hardy – Hardy is “a red-faced, cheerful looking man” and is one of the first characters that we meet in Journey’s End, he introduces us to the surroundings of the trench and what goes on there. Hardy is the Captain of this particular battalion, when we are first introduced to him, but later he reveals that he is being transferred to another Battalion. Hardy’s character lifts the tension in the trench by making a joke about near enough everything, such as when he is drying his sock over the candle “mind my sock”, and when he gives a tip to Osborne about ear-wig races “dip it in whiskey”, and so by laughing about the earwigs and other things this temporarily helps the soldiers to forget about the war by taking their minds elsewhere, Hardy’s purpose in Journey’s End is to provide a hearty character that finds everything funny, and he tries to enjoy himself by making the best of a bad situation and who doesn’t appear in Journey’s End for to long, thus further more emphasising the impermanence of the War and that how nothing ever stays the same for long, as Captain Hardy leaves us after only a few hours as he is being transferred elsewhere.
Lieutenant Osborne – Osborne is also one of the first characters that we meet at the beginning of Journey’s End, we first see him talking to Hardy as the play begins. He is quite old, about 45, this is revealed as he takes off his helmet and he shows us his “close-cropped, iron-grey hair”. Osborne makes a friend with Captain Stanhope and they bond quite well as Stanhope begins to call Osborne “Uncle”, this may be because, Osborne is twice Stanhope’s age, And He comes across as a Uncle figure to Stanhope, this could also be compared to the Father – son relationship between Stanhope and Raleigh. In the beginning Hardy and Osborne talk about Stanhope and tell us how he is a “drunkard”, and so before we even meet Stanhope we already know what behaviour to expect, they also tell us that Stanhope is a brave, young and determined commander, and this also adds to the audiences expectations of Stanhope before we even meet him, but still Osborne and Hardy still disagree about Stanhope. Osborne helps to develop his character by becoming a good listener to Stanhope and he develops a sort of “agony uncle” aura about him when he and Stanhope are talking, and he tells Stanhope how Raleigh looks up to him so much “I believe Raleigh’ll go on liking and looking up to you, through everything, there’s something very deep and rather fine about hero-worship”, and I think that this may also be symbolic of someone that Sherriff may have met in the war and he has decided to immortalise them in his literature.
Captain Stanhope – we first hear about Stanhope from Hardy and Osborne when they tell us how Stanhope enjoys drinking Whiskey. We discover this for ourselves later in the play as Stanhope is revealed as an Alcoholic, his speech degenerates as he drinks more and eventually he ends up literally legless and uses such phrases as “I go sleep now” and he sounds like a child. Plus when he drinks whiskey he opens up and is able to have deep conversations, rather than his usual self where he uses sharp short commands as speech instead of long and deep sentences that you can tell he has really thought about. Stanhope’s drinking takes us on a sort of journey as he drinks more and more. He goes from using sharp and short sentences – to deep and meaningful ones, he then gets to a stage when he is slurring his words and becomes completely incoherent. Stanhope also shows his insecurity with the war (which are revealed as he drinks more) as he uses such phrases as “I can’t bear being conscious all the time” and “if I went up those steps into the front line, without being doped up with whiskey, I’d go mad with fright”. This shows that the whiskey gives Stanhope courage, and he fools a lot of people into thinking that he is really brave all the time, but really he’s just drunk all the time and the whiskey gives him a constant flow of “Dutch Courage”. Stanhope also makes a great leader as he persuades many soldiers from not going to the doctor and being sent home, such as Hibbert. By doing this Stanhope maintains his sense of duty and honour to his country, as this is what should be expected of a leader.
2nd-Lieutenant Trotter – Trotter likes his food, and as a result of his love of food he tends to make quite a fuss, for example, “we must have pepper” when he makes poor Mason run about all over the spot looking for a pot of pepper, and by doing this the classes system of this era is revealed to us (Servants and Masters scenario). This also shows that Trotter pays attention to detail and fusses about really little and petite things, but by talking about food this can take the soldiers mind off the fact that there in the middle of the First World War, but this is also only another temporary fix, as the boredom of the war soon sets in. Trotter is a comic character and during Journey’s End he lightens the tension a lot.
Private Mason – Mason’s character in Journey’s end is not a very important one, but he is symbolic of the class system that was a strong issue about the turn of the 20th century, as he is a servant to the rest of the soldiers in the trench. He cooks their food, basically carries out all of the menial tasks around the trench, and obeys any personal orders that the soldiers may make such as Trotter asking for pepper on his soup. Mason is very obedient and he lifts the tension and boredom in the trench in some instances, such as when he sheepishly approaches the soldiers and tells them that the can of what they thought was at first pineapple chunks was in fact apricots. You can tell that Mason is from a “lower class” to the rest of the soldiers as they use completely different language to Mason, Mason tends to use more slang words and the other soldiers sound quite old fashioned, sort of upper class and use words that are in the same context as ‘jolly good chaps’, ‘chuffing’, and ‘mind the old girl’.
2nd-Lieutenant Hibbert – Hibbert is a whiner. He is a little man in his mid-20’s and “a little moustache and a pallid face”, and he complains about absolutely everything, most of all his constant “neuralgia”, which he keeps bothering Stanhope to let him go to the doctor, so that he can be sent home, but Stanhope’s loyalty to his position as leader and his job kick in and he stops Hibbert from going to the doctor, as it is obvious to us and the characters that Hibbert is faking it “no proof, as far as I can see” – Stanhope, this also shows us the purpose of a character like Hibbert, as a lot of soldiers faked illness in order to be sent away to the hospital, even if it only meant that they could get away from the trenches for a couple of weeks, or even days!, this is very ironic as if he would have been sent home he would have been considered a hero by his country, but really he is a coward for faking illness.
During the first act, we see plenty of action, but really just introductions to all of the characters and their personalities, and so by doing this, this helps the audience to achieve a greater understanding of the characters and their surroundings during the first act, and this helps to set up the first act as we get to know about some of the psychological and Physical effects that the war is having on these soldiers. Also, by the end of act 2 we have already lost 2 main characters, one of which is Osborne. This would happen all the time in the war, but as we have been introduced to them and have got to know them, this shows some of the reality of the war.
During World War 1, many letters that were sent home were censored, to protect them from the truth. So people back home were buttered up with many propaganda posters that depicted the enemy as horrible people, well in some cases this was true and most of the people that were the driving force behind this war, were very horrible people indeed, but some propaganda depicted scenes of women and children and that was just not the case, propaganda posters were used worldwide. On the opponents side they used terrible propaganda, but back home in England the propaganda was more in the way of glorified patriotism and such phrases as “your country needs you” were used, and this had a great effect on the public as many men rushed to sign up as firstly they all thought that the war would be over by Christmas, and secondly they would have been considered national heroes for their services to the country. But they were not home by Christmas and for four years women and children back home had to support themselves without no men, apart from the ‘cowards’ who were shunned by society for not going to war and many were given white feathers to symbolise their cowardice.
The living conditions in World War 1 were absolutely disgusting, and in the trenches such things as rats and lice were all over and some times even human waste and body bits were usually left lying around, the lice were all over the soldiers bodies and they had to burst the eggs with a flame so that they wouldn’t multiply any more, but his didn’t work for long as the lice just kept coming back.
When the soldiers went “over the top” they had no idea of what to expect, as there had never been such a war that used so much technological advances before and nobody really knew what to expect, and that’s probably one of the reasons why World War 1 became stalemated, and months went by where there was little or no fighting at all, and this worsened the situation back home as most of the soldiers were convinced that this war would be over by Christmas of that year (1914), not four years after in 1918, so this meant that mothers/daughters/sisters were left at home for four years, and in this time they had to cope with many things, plus bringing the children up, some of which had never even met their fathers, as a result of the length of the war. This would have made an effect on the audience as many of them would have had a relative in the war or may have been in the war itself.
In terms of modern warfare, we are now more advanced than we were in 1914-1918, and now the truth is not really kept from us, as it was in the First World War where we were “protected from the truth” by means of censoring the letters that were sent home, and now we can actually see what is going on in war, as cameras are widely available today we can actually see what is going on and we can sent t.v reporters/journalists down to the front line, to give interviews to the soldiers etc, and whereas today we can use media to record what is happening, in terms of WW1 we can only rely on plays and stories that were written at the time, for convincing evidence to what went on during WW1, and so our only real source (apart from soldiers that were in WW1) is the literature and poetry that has immortalised this event in history forever.
In my opinion I think that Journey’s End is a really good play and that it communicates well the mental and psychological turmoil’s of the First World War, I think it is incredibly realistic, and that Sherriff’s attention to detail indicates to us that he was in fact in the war and that it is most probable that the characters we meet in Journey’s End are those that R.C Sherriff met whilst he was in the trenches, and I think that the fact that R.C Sherriff has decided to share this experience with us is very admirable and that the realism of this improves Journey’s End ten fold.
Act one of Journey’s End sets the tone for the rest of the play by introduces us to all of the characters in succession and by starting the play with just Hardy and Osborne talking to each other, this creates tension and makes the audience want to lean in to the story to learn more. This also happens when Stanhope is talking to “Uncle” Osborne, and in many other instances. This makes the audience feel more involved. Act 1 is quite serious, as apart from the introductions to the characters we get to know most of the characters inner selves such as that Stanhope is really a alcoholic, and isn’t as brave as everyone thinks he is, we get this from each character individually as they enter and as some of the soldiers talk about them, all in all I think that Journey’s End by R.C Sherriff is a ‘Jolly good one’ and I thoroughly enjoyed writing about it.
