Not all the characters react in the same way however, Osborne had been reading an unusual book for his age and Trotter has scornful reactions to the book by saying ‘Alice in Wonderland – why, that’s a kid’s book!’ Although, Sherriff may have chosen this book for Osborne because the contrasts of the cheerful and high spirited book with the horrific experiences of the World War creates an oxymoron for how the major differences between the two help Osborne balance out the severity of War with the bliss from the children’s book. The point of having a children’s book for Osborne could define his character by representing that he is quite like a child himself; although he is not juvenile he can show aspects of vulnerability, also in a conversation with Stanhope about worms Osborne shows he has an imagination like a child because he is empathising what life could be like for a worm, ‘When it’s going down I suppose the blood runs to his head and makes it throb.’ Having Osborne reading a book like Alice in Wonderland might make the audience feel a protective towards Osborne since he is acting in some ways like a defenceless child.
Throughout the play we can see how Sherriff has ranked the characters in an order of hierarchy; the main character who we can see this from is mason, the officers’ cook. Mason is nearer the bottom of the ranking as he is purely there to serve the other men. Mason uses language like ‘sir’ to show respect for the other men in the trench so this shows how Mason is required to show respect because the other men simply expect his. Many of the other characters rely upon Mason to feed them and usually to lift their spirits after a day out in the war. The men are usually very particular about what they like to eat for example, ‘You know that tin of pineapple chunks I got, sir? Well, sir, I’m sorry to say it’s apricots.’ Mason has considered what the men do not like to eat and he has to get it correct for their liking. Trotter expresses how much he likes his food throughout the play, ‘I mean, after all, war’s bad enough with pepper (noisy sip), but war without pepper it’s, it’s bloody awful.’ This quote from Trotter when he is speaking to his fellow officers represents how significant eating is to him. He requires his food to be as exquisite as possible so he can focus his attention on something other than the war. Perhaps this is another way of coping with fear and stress, although Trotter’s method relies on someone else to prepare and make the food as well as possible. Also, the officer’s care a little too much about the trivial things they wouldn’t care less about during their lives as home. This represents how Sherriff has made the war make the characters seem on edge sot they are becoming frustrated over unimportant aspects to their day to day lives. The men usually only have to shout Mason for him to come immediately, this shows he is constantly at their beck and call as he has nothing more significant to be doing. Whenever, Mason is speaking in the play he usually says as less as possible, this shows how he never needs to explain his points because his opinion isn’t valued higher than the other men’s, although it could also mean that Mason isn’t intelligent enough to give his opinion in a structured and mature manner suited to the situation. This creates an impact on the rest of the group of men if there is a major difference in class. Stress can be seen from this because the higher up a character is, in means of importance, the more stress they will be taking on because of the more responsibilities they will have. The audience can also sympathize with this because in modern day to day lives there are still aspects of hierarchy which take on the same relation of stress, in an office job a cleaner will have far less fear and stress due to how little responsibilities she has compared with the superior.
The MC Award stands for the Military cross award, it is awarded for bravery. This award represents the heroism which is portrayed by Raleigh’s views of Stanhope, ‘[Stanhope just got his M.C. and been made captain’. Raleigh ‘only left school at the end of last summer term’ so he can remember clearly who he looked up to in his schooldays. ‘Yes, I’m a hero’ Stanhope says sarcastically as he doesn’t consider himself to be the hero Raleigh believes him to be. Although, Raleigh might need this thought of a hero so he can set a goal for himself, for instance if he remembers Stanhope as a heroic male role model then perhaps he is forcing himself to become oblivious to the reality of the now drunken Stanhope so he can aspire to become how he remembers the true Stanhope. Sherriff may have used this technique so the audience can recognise how young characters will generally need someone to rely on and someone who they can trust, so they will be able to follow in their footsteps to success. Raleigh’s way of handling the fear and stress could be by modelling himself on another, more successful character and rather than becoming stressed about the situation he is in presently, he will think about the skills and the reputation he will gain in the future.
The wet trenches described near the beginning of the play represented by hardy’s sock getting wet, put forward that the trench is a very uncomfortable surrounding in which the soldiers have to eat, sleep and live in. The audience can understand that the trenches are wet from hardy’s speech ‘Guaranteed to keep the feet dry. The trouble is they get a bit wet doing so’. The wet trenches are one aspect that Sherriff is using to represent the very low standard of living that these soldiers are going through. The idea of uncomfortable living is portrayed so Sherriff can make the audience understand that life in the trenches were not easy and plenty of suffering occurred during the war, the audience may react to this by empathising what life must have been like without a comfortable dry home, fresh food and clean water.
So, by analysing the different methods used by R.C Sherriff to portray fear and stress it is also visible why he has chosen to do this, Sherriff had chosen to incorporate hierarchy to show who got the worst end of the fear and stress divided between the characters within the war. At the top of the scale is Stanhope, the commanding officer, who decided to handle the anxieties he received from the war by drinking a large amount of alcohol. Based on the fact that Stanhope is of high importance to the company, his way of coping is in proportion to how much stress he thinks he has to deal with. Osborne, who is an Officer, has a moderate amount of stress therefore he has chosen to handle it by reading a children’s book. In comparison to Stanhope, this method is much less major than drinking constantly. On the other hand, mason has an insignificant amount of stress due to his low importance to the company, even though he may have some amount of stress given to him by the high standards of the officers, Mason is not recognised to having a way of dealing with his stress. Linked with hierarchy, Raleigh represents a large amount of heroism in the play. Stanhope is identified as Raleigh’s hero, perhaps this is due to the fact that he has contact with a family member of Raleigh’s. Based upon the many different methods that Sherriff had used whilst writing his play, it is clear, once considering each method, that R.C Sherriff wanted to expose how different life of the soldiers were back then. How they had so much pressure to be forced to be devoted to using violence as a way of being patriotic to their own country.
