Also one of Stanhope’s ‘major’ pleasures is alcohol. Alcohol represents his escape from the truth and from the fear of the war. As Stanhope says he ‘can’t go out of the dugout without a drink of whisky’. This is unquestionably the reality for Stanhope.
For Osborne, his comradeship with everyone seems to make the war tolerable for him. Osborne likes being diplomatic and also has a predisposition to make people feel all right. He is a very empathetic character as he has feelings in the war whereas most people don’t.
Osborne’s minor pleasure is comradeship. It is one of his best characteristics and he does it so well that it is one of the only ones thought about. Osborne also likes to talk about almost anything apart from the war i.e. when talking to Raleigh just before the raid, he kept on trying to change the subject and talk about something else.
He is also the middle-man between Stanhope and Raleigh, even though they know each other already he still feels that it his duty to break the ice between them.
Sukhdeep Singh Sohal 10J1
‘War is only made tolerable by
Comradeship and Minor Pleasures’
As Raleigh is only new to the war, he is still not sure how to make this war tolerable for him. He tries to talk of subjects that are no where near to the war, like home. But then he talks of how he and ‘Dennis’ used to walk through the forests near home. This is his comradeship. He uses memories of Stanhope and himself to distract him from the War and also from the ‘comradeship’ between them now, which is not as good.
Raleigh’s minor pleasure is to talk. He would rather talk about anything but the war then remind himself of the war. As said before, he is new to the war and therefore has not yet developed a pertinent minor pleasure. He is still getting to know his surroundings and so does not up till now know what will make the war tolerable for him.
For Trotter, humour and food are the things that make the war tolerable for him. All throughout the book Trotter is trying to cheer everyone up and even when he is not trying to, he makes people laugh at him. He renders jokes and knows when to change the subject if there is a serious row about to begin. Although it may seem, he is not always making people laugh; he is serious at times to.
When Trotter talks about food and how he used to grow some back home in his garden, he attracts people’s attention and acquires them to listen and take their minds off other things.
Trotter’s minor pleasure is food. He bothers about it a lot and always fusses about it e.g. he makes the discussion about the pepper a hyperbole; it works.
Journey’s End does very well in supporting the above statement as it portrays every character scared of the war and therefore needy of a minor pleasure.
Sukhdeep Singh Sohal 10J1