Sheriff is attentive to each sense that a human has, and gives a specific; clear description of each one. If we were there, our first acknowledgement of the trenches would be through our sense if sight. For this reason, he describes what the trenches looked like first, even the, ‘gloomy tunnels lead out to the right and left.’ We are shown the ‘sounds of war,’ As the ‘earth wall deaden the sounds.’ He even gives us an impression of the smell and atmosphere of the, ‘still, damp air,’ that the officers and men in the war would have had to smell and recognise. Another sense in which Sherriff illustrates, is their taste. Sheriff displays the reality of the food that was given during the war and the attitudes that the men had towards it. The officers are given ‘pineapple chunks’ but through the characters speech, Sherriff shows his audience that they tasted,’too blooming sickly.’ The officers seem to take a lot of time talking about the food, which gives us the impression that they had little else to talk about.
Throughout the whole play, we are constantly being reminded that the officers did not, in fact, have much to do. Sherriff reveals the severe boredom that the officers did have to face. Rather than the image given out by propaganda at the time, he reveals that it was in fact,’ often quiet – like this’. When the men start talking more we realise the real boredom that Sherriff must have faced in the trenches as Hardy says,’ sometimes nothing happens for hours on end.’ Due to lack of things to do, there is a ‘log book,’ that Hardy has written,’5pm-8pm. All quiet, German airmen flew over trenches. Shot a rat.’ We can tell that Hardy must have been bored because nothing happened in three hours. Hardy mentions insignificant events that happened because they were the only things that happened. Due to this lack of events, Sherriff shows his audience what the men would do in order to keep them themselves occupied. In Hardy’s case, it would seem that there was no significance or meaning in shooting this rat, except to engage himself for the few seconds if doing it. Another peculiar way in which the men distract themselves is by resorting to childish games. We are shown that they play,’ earwig races,’ and that the men have ‘had them every evening’. This activity that would seem boring to us is made ‘great fun,’ in the trenches, as there is little else for the men to do.
To add to the boredom they are facing, the men are trying to keep their minds off the danger of death that they are facing. Sherriff expresses this by showing that the men talk about things that do not relate to the war. An example of this is the character Stanhope. Stanhope becomes a figure of entertainment for the men as he ‘drinks like a fish.’ Stanhope becomes the centre of gossip as Hardy says that he,’ drank a whole bottle in one hour fifteen minutes, we timed him.’ We are told that Stanhope is,’the natural thing to ask about’, and by writing this Sherriff is showing us that every officer has nothing else to do but sit and ask about Stanhope while they are waiting for something to happen.
Stanhope is a character upon whom the audience could have many different views. The first we hear about him is from the officers Osborne and Hardy. Osborne says,’ Stanhope asked me to come and take over. He’s looking after the men coming in.’ This at first gives us the impression that he has much authority as he is telling Osborne what to do. We think that he may be a mature gentleman who,’ likes having a word with the company manager he’s relieving.’ However or impressions could dramatically change when Hardy asks, ‘how is the dear young boy? Drinking as usual?’ Sherriff now creates the impression that Stanhope is not as mature and is more of a ‘young boy’.
Sherriff is here using Stanhope as a stereotype of a type of man that would be in the war. He is shown as a man, who suffers under the strain that they are put under, but forces his way through it and still stands strong at the end of it. He portrays this image as heroic, compared to other characters attitudes to war. Throughout the play there are man other characters that Sherriff uses as stereo types, with whom we meet later on in the play.
Due to these obvious drinking problems, it makes us think that there is something about Stanhope that we have not been shown, which would push him further to resort to drinking such excessive amounts. By doing this Sherriff has shown us another reality of war as each man is secretive and holds with them the secrets about themselves that the other officers would not know the secret about their home lives. This may have been because they did not want to talk about what or who they were missing back home and what or who they may never see again. It is only rarely that we hear about their lives back home. This tells us a lot about the characters as they obviously think about their home lives and loved ones often, but are rarely found talking about them. This shows that R.C. Sherriff must have been in a similar situation himself as he may not have wanted to talk about what he was leaving at home.
We only find out about Stanhope’s home life when the new officer ‘Raleigh’ joins the Battalion, as he already knew Stanhope. Because of this Raleigh revealed much about him that Stanhope was not content with the other officers knowing. The first time that we hear about his home life is when Raleigh is talking about how,’ Dennis used to stay with us’, whereas ‘Dennis’, (Stanhope) had never mentioned this before. Raleigh also reveals,’ They’re not officially engaged’. Raleigh exposed a secret of Stanhope’s as he had never mentioned such an important detail of his life. When Stanhope first sees Raleigh, we see by the stage directions that Stanhope talks,’in a low voice’, and says, ‘How did you get here?’ This shows that Stanhope is not content on seeing Raleigh as Raleigh knows the truth about Stanhope’s home life. This may be because Stanhope does not want the others to know that he cares so much about something, as he wants to keep an image as a tough person, or it may be because he is embarrassed to admit that there is someone who loves him at home, and all he is doing at war is ‘drinking like a fish.’ We are shown this as Stanhope says,’…she is waiting for me – and she doesn’t know that if I went up those steps onto the front line – without being doped with whisky – I’d go mad with fright.’ This also proves that Stanhope is just as intent on keeping his trench life secret from his home life as he is his home life a secret from the trenches.
On meeting Raleigh’s attitude to the war, the difference between the older soldiers, to the younger, fresh and experienced soldiers becomes clear. On watching the play, we can relate to the character Raleigh, as he is as new to the idea of war as we are. The first words of Raleigh,’ Good evening… sir’, were the first real words of Sherriff when he first entered the trenches. Sherriff is using Raleigh to represent the new and fresh members of the trenches, and he displays Raleigh’s character as the stereotype of the new inexperienced officers.
One of the factors that Sherriff shows through Raleigh is how the propaganda really did affect people outside the war. Raleigh finds that it ,’seems so funny’ as it was not ,’ exactly what I thought’. We know that propaganda was being used at that time and Sherriff also brings this reality into his play through Raleigh.
Another reality that Sherriff shows through Raleigh is the language used. Raleigh uses the school boy slang of that time, as he says, ‘ripping,’ and ‘topping,’ which both emphasize his youth. A contrasting character to this is trotter. Trotter uses a more cockney accent and language. While talking he misses of his ‘H’s at the beginning of a word, for example when he says,’ ‘ow did you go about that.’ Sherriff is showing the great class divide of the time. Trotter is representing the lower class whereas Raleigh is showing a higher, more private school boy class and image. We know this is another great reality of war because the class divide was so grand at the time, that its result (for example, their speech) would have been shown clearly in war, and Sherriff therefore shows them clearly through his play.
As well as the ‘lower class’ image, Trotter is representing the stereotype of men who take the strain of war, but are mentally strong enough to cope without fuss. Trotter tries to pass the time and boredom by drawing,’ a hundred and forty-four little circles on a piece o’ paper,’ and then every hour he would ,’black one in, that’ll make the time go alright.’ This shows the reality of different people in the war and how some people like Trotter did manage to endure the war without being mentally broken.
Another character that portrays a similar image as Trotter is Osborne. Osborne is the ‘uncle’ of the regiment, and is one of the closest to Stanhope. Sherriff uses him as a character that looks,’physically as hard as nails,’ and also uses him as a character who does not show that he is greatly suffering from the strain of war. When he found out he would be leading the raid, Osborne did not panic like most men would have done, but replied with, ‘I see.’ Even when Stanhope tried to apologise about this Osborne said to him, ‘that’s alright, old chap.’ Sherriff may have been trying to show that men like Osborne appear to be fine, but we can tell by the stage directions, after Stanhope breaks the news to Osborne, that he is not as jolly as he makes out to be a we are faced with, ‘a pause.’
A further stereotype in his play that we find is through the character of Hibbert. Hibbert clearly finds it hard to cope with the strain that he is under and we are shown this as he tries to leave the trenches. Hibbert intends to go ‘down to see the doctor’, as he thinks he will, ‘send me to hospital.’ This is thought of as a coward’s way out, as Stanhope shows by saying,’ you’re going to see it through with the rest of us.’ Stanhope tells Hibbert,’ You are not going anywhere.’ This is again showing another reality of war as we know many men were shot for deserting as they could not cope with the strain. Hibbert is being used by Sherriff to play the stereotype of this type of man in the war.
Sherriff also portrays another reality of war that would have come as a great shock to people when it was first ever shown. Sherriff did not blame the German soldiers. He made it very clear at the beginning that they were just men in the same situation as the English soldiers. Sherriff uses Osborne as he describes one incident,’ a big German officer stoop up in their trenches and called out: ‘carry him!’ – and our fellows stood up and carried the man back and the German officer fired some lights for them to see by.’ Sherriff has shown that neither side at the war really loathed the other side as they were meant to, but they were both just facing the same horrible experiences of war.
There are only few reasons in which it could be argued that the play does not portray the reality of war. One of the reasons is that Sherriff does not focus a lot on the fighting, when in fact it was a large part of the war. Also, as he was creating a play, he may have tried to make it entertaining to watch as he wanted it to be a success, and in doing this, created aspects of it that were not realistic. Also, as the play was based on his experience, it may not have been the same for every officer.
In conclusion, I think that the play ‘Journey’s End’ does portray the reality of life in the trenches extremely effectively as it was based on Sheriff’s own experience of the true reality of war. I believe that each page hides many different realities of the war, both the unexpected and the expected, and overall the play is almost mimicking the action and harsh realities of life in the trenches of the First World War.
