In Journeys End, R.C Sherriff presents a realistic picture of life in the trenches and an effective portrayal of the horrors of war. How far do you agree with this statement? Include particular reference to setting, tone, characterisation and
In 'Journeys End', R.C Sherriff presents a realistic picture of life in the trenches and an effective portrayal of the horrors of war. How far do you agree with this statement? Include particular reference to setting, tone, characterisation and plot.
'Journeys End' by R.C Sherriff is about what life was like for a company of officers in the last few months of the First World War. The play covers six days and is set in a dugout on the front line. This essay explores the realism and the effective portrayal of the horrors of the First World War in 'Journeys End.' R.C Sherriff wrote the play ten years after the war ended in 1928. The gap in time, coupled with the chosen medium of the theatre could distort the true horrors of the war for the audience.
The chosen medium for Sherriff's story is the theatre; this has benefits as well as problems. The staging can show the dim lights and the flashes. It can play the sounds of the trench fighting and No-man's land, however the stage can only show the detail up to a certain extent. For example the stage director could not have live rats running around on stage, but on page 22 Trotter does say "have your revolver to shoot rats," and the stage director could have rat noises playing in the background, such as scuffling and squeaking. This would stimulate an image in the audiences mind as to what the trench was like. Through the audience using their imagination they will get a much better idea of the horrors.
The play is only staged in the dugout, and although the characters go up to the trenches, the audience never get to see it. Instead of this, sound and light effects are used so that the audience have to imagine what the trench is like. This is effective because the theatre would never be able to show the terrible conditions; the dead bodies, the stench, the rats and most of all the disgusting deep mud that was at parts knee-deep. By stimulating an image the audience will have a much better idea of the horror. By only having the dugout and the audience looking onto it gives the effect of the audience being an extension of the stage. This is effective in the way that the audience is passively waiting like the soldiers who are passively waiting. It also gives the audience the feeling of claustrophobia as they sit in the dark waiting for something to happen.
R.C Sherriff subtly describes the trenches and the dugout throughout the play. Page 49 states "...companies on our sides will give way." This is effective because Sherriff combines a brief description of the trench system in the dialogue, the example used also builds a sense of expectancy for the audience because they know what is going to happen before it does, and therefore suspense is created. Although it can be said that the descriptions are effective, in some ways they are superficial and don't portray the horrific reality of trench warfare as well as some of Sherriff's contemporaries do, however, it may be the most effective when targeting the public who thought the war was glorious. 'A Dead Boche' is a poem by Robert Graves, which contains a description of a dead body. "With clothes and face a sodden green, /Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired, /Dribbling black blood from nose and beard." This section uses many more descriptive words than 'Journeys End' as well as using the onomatopoeic 'dribbling,' and the alliterative 'black blood' and ' big-bellied,' the effect of the poetic language is to draw a vivid picture of the disgusting details. Although the staging of 'Journeys End' can evoke the reader's imagination, the dialogue of it is not poetic and thus does not conjure the same direct effect through language as Robert Graves' poem does.
Apart from the futility of war, the two main topics that we learn in 'Journeys End' are censorship, which is talked about in depth twice in the play, and food, which is present throughout the play. On pages 29 and 30, Stanhope tells Osborne about how he is going to censor the letters written by Raleigh, in the hope that he will be able to prevent him reporting on Stanhope's health. "Censorship! I'll censor his letters - cross out all he says about me," shows the realism that company captains could get disturbed feelings and thoughts due to ...
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Apart from the futility of war, the two main topics that we learn in 'Journeys End' are censorship, which is talked about in depth twice in the play, and food, which is present throughout the play. On pages 29 and 30, Stanhope tells Osborne about how he is going to censor the letters written by Raleigh, in the hope that he will be able to prevent him reporting on Stanhope's health. "Censorship! I'll censor his letters - cross out all he says about me," shows the realism that company captains could get disturbed feelings and thoughts due to the stressful life in the trenches, which could lead them to abuse their responsibilities, such as censorship.
Whenever food is talked about in the play it is accompanied with humour, especially from Trotter and Mason. An example of this is on page 33 Mason tells Trotter "if you look down straight on it from above, sir, you can see the bit o'lean quite clear." Humour adds to the pathos of the situation and is also used to heighten the effectiveness of the description. There were feasts for the officers after a raid: In 'Journeys End' after the attack, the officers were given "two bottles of champagne and half a dozen cigars!" - Osborne: page 78. The majority of men on the front line were privates, and we do not learn anything about their diet except for when the subject is briefly touched upon on page 88 when Raleigh tells Stanhope that he had "a cup, and some bread and cheese" with the men on duty. The lack of information on the diet of privates could lead to the audience getting the mistaken idea that they received the same quality of food as the officers did, when really the officers had a much better diet than the men. Most of the people fighting on the line were privates, so the lack of food is unrealistically portrayed.
The Tone of 'Journeys End' is a mixture of pathos, humour and nostalgia. The pathos is present all they way through the play: from the start when Hardy is talking to Osborne on page 5 about Stanhope's whisky abuse making him a "freak show exhibit" and that it is entertainment to watch him "drink himself unconscious," to the end of the play when the company have surrounded themselves with barbed wire ("I want a screen of wire put down both flanks" - Stanhope, page 49) and plan to fight as long as it is possible to and not retreat even when they "get through the gaps on our sides," page 50. A good example of this pathos and how Osborne realises that all they are doing is pointless, is on page 63 and 64, Osborne is reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,' when Trotter asks why he's reading a "kid's book" he tells him that he is reading the book because there is no point to it. Here a parallel is drawn with Alice's crazy adventures and the situation that both the English and German soldiers are in, where they are killing each other for no reason and nobody is getting anywhere. The effect of this is to show the audience that the trench fighting is comparable to a "kid's book" where everything seems to be absurd, and nothing makes any sense.
Humour is also present throughout the play and nearly always accompanies pathos. This is necessary because the audience can only take a certain amount of horror before becoming desensitised to so much negative detail and regarding the play as a fictional story rather than an account of trench life. The humour provides a release, heightening the audience's sense of awareness for the plight of the soldiers, this way R.C Sherriff makes his portrayal much more effective in targeting the public audience.
When the officers talk together in the dugout it is quite obvious that they are suffering from nostalgia. A good example of this is on page 35: "walking round in me slippers after supper, smoking me pipe." In this example Trotter mentions common household objects (slippers and pipe), the effect of this is to universalise Trotter's home life. They often talk about how picturesque their home is, and what they would be doing with their loved ones if they were back at home, however they never speak once in the whole play about their homes in a negative way. This shows that they are remembering all of the good things about their family life, but their memories are purely happy, excluding any negative aspects. This portrays to the audience how much time the soldiers spend thinking of home, and how they feel cut-off from civilised human life whilst in the stinking, muddy trenches.
The desired over all effect of the plot in 'Journeys End' is to show the depressing inevitably and intense waiting of trench life. The audience know that the big attack coming and it is most likely that most of the characters are going to die. However this inevitability is not a bad thing because it builds a sense of expectancy, therefore adding suspense - the audience will be waiting for the inevitable things to happen, just like the soldiers in World War I were. 'Journeys End' portrays to the audience how the soldiers would know that they could die any day, whether it was from a sniper, or in an attack. Everyday would be the same with the main emotional factor being boredom due to the intense waiting. The structure of 'Journeys End' is to have many conversations between the different characters, before and after each progression of the plot, such as an attack. The effect of this is to build suspense and expectancy before action and emphasise the repercussion of battle after the event, it also shows to the audience that most of the time would be spent waiting for something to happen, and then when it did it would be over fairly quickly. The audience being an extension of the stage means that they get to experience the waiting and suspense more than if they were separate to the stage.
The peaks of suspense come just before the attacks, such as on pages 69 - 76 where Raleigh and Osborne are about to go 'over the top' on their mission to "pounce on the first Boche" and "bundle him out" - page 71. On page 72 Osborne quotes from 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' again, once more illustrating that there was no considerable point to their mission. "Now we're off! Quick, let's talk about pigs!" shows how the soldiers were often so overwhelmed by the death and destruction that they switched off and found comfort in talking about simple things with no reason, such as in this case with pigs, and worms on page 42: "I expect that's the one thing that worms dread." It is dialogues like this example that show to the audience how the Soldiers put up the continual exposure to battle and cruel elements, and how they survived without going mad.
'The way that the audience get to know and understand the characters before they are killed is very effective. It portrays the realism that experienced men such as Stanhope, who had been fighting in the trenches for a long time, would often have watched their entire friends and comrades die. On page 27 Stanhope tells Osborne how "there is not a man left who was here when I came."
Characterisation is a large part of 'Journey's End.' Just like in real life the characters all come from different social classes. These classes are differentiated between through use of dialogue and humour. In general the officers that held higher positions in the military hierarchy spoke differently to the officers holding lower positions. An example of this is on page 69 where the Colonel is speaking to Osborne and Raleigh. The Colonel clears his throat before speaking, a sign of polite supervisory. When he speaks he rarely abbreviates his pronunciation, unlike the officers lower down the system who speak in a remarkable combination of slang, abbreviations and early twentieth century public school expressions. A good example of this is on page 35 where Trotter says: " 'Ad some fine 'olly'ocks out the back. One year I 'ad one eight feet 'igh." The effect of the dialogue is to portray to the audience the difference in role, education and background. Public School background is evident on page 11, where Raleigh and Osborne are discussing what the sport was like in the school that both Raleigh and Stanhope attended before the war.
Universality is very widely used in 'Journeys End' so that the audience can relate to all of the characters. An example of this is the role Raleigh plays is not just that of a person, but he is an embodiment of youth and innocence. He represents all the young men that fought and died in the trenches. The way that he describes himself as "frightfully keen to get into Dennis's regiment" on page 12 and the way he thinks that the attack he is going to lead with Osborne is "most frightfully exciting" on page 65 shows his innocence, enthusiasm and the way he is unaware of the horror of death in the trenches, this plays upon the audiences sympathy. On page 39 he shares his thoughts that "the Germans are really quite decent," this shows his respectful personality and harmless nature. On page 77 the English officers interrogate a "German boy". The Stage directions are that the boy "falls on his knees and sobs," the effect of this on the audience is a feeling empathy and sympathy for the small boy, resulting in them understanding how the soldiers felt towards the 'enemy'. The way that Osborne is referred to as 'Uncle' by the other officers, of both higher and lower rank, is universality. Everyone knows someone like Osborne; he is the embodiment of parental care. An example of his fatherly role for Stanhope is on page 31 where Stanhope says to Osborne "Dear old Uncle Tuck me up," this example empathises how young Stanhope is.
The brigadier is introduced to the audience but only through other people speaking about him. Although he is a very important character in the way gives the orders, setting the whole plot of the play, the audience never actually get to meet him. This realistically portrays to the audience what it was like for the soldiers in the trenches, they were given orders and were sent to their deaths by the brigadier and other high-up officers, but they never got to see them because they are miles behind the front line eating and drinking expensively in some safe French mansion. This could cause mutinous feeling among the soldiers who were undernourished and sleeping in the mud with rats and dead bodies. Whenever private soldiers are mentioned in 'Journeys End' they are always referred to as "the men," an example of this is on page 65 where Raleigh says "just you and me, isn't it - and ten men?" The lack of identify amongst the private soldiers is effective in the way that it shows differentiation between officers and privates. Sherriff gives much more detail when talking about the few upper class officers than the amount that he does when he is describing many more private soldiers. The character Hibbert is representation and embodiment of the thoughts that all the soldiers had about taking the easy way out, faking an illness. Although a minor character Hibbert is vital if the audience are to understand how important comradeship was to all the soldiers fighting in World War I, and how the majority of the soldiers felt that they were condemned to die, whether it was sooner or later, and the best way to die was with your friends and comrades in a common cause, even if they recognised that that cause had no real point.
The play ends with the dugout collapsing on Raleigh and the audience being left in darkness. This is symbolic in the way that the public were 'left in the dark' after the First World War ended. The darkness is absolute with no glimmer of light, portraying how there is no hope for the future. The darkness that the audience are left in also has the effect of creating the feeling of despair. Unlike the other plays and shows such as 'Zip' (which Stanhope talks about on page 83) the lights are put out at the end, rather turned back on as is customary. Normally at the end of a performance the audience reflect upon the entertainment of what they just witnessed, the dark ending of 'Journeys End' makes it perfectly clear that the purpose of the play is not to entertain, but educate, and the ending is not happy but tragic.
R.C Sherriff wrote 'Journeys End' as a way to portray to the public audience the horrors of World War I. Sherriff had many contemporaries such as Wilfred Owen and Robert Graves, most of these contemporaries used mediums such as poetry to convey their message of war life to the public. Poetry was better for describing the awful conditions, such as the mud, but I think that theatre is more effective when targeting the public such as Sherriff was, despite the way that the horrors can not be described fully.
Thomas Ely