Similarities Between "Journey’s End" And Owen’s Range Of Poems
Both RC Sherriff and Wilfred Owen are war poets whom first-hand experienced the horrors of war alongside six million British men in the First World War, in which over 700,000 men were killed. The writer’s works were based on their individual experiences in the war, though there are many similarities between Sherriff’s play Journey’s End and Owen’s range of poems. The idea of patriotism is evident in ‘A Journey’s End’ and is also heavily focused on in many of Owen’s poems. It shows the effects of war propaganda as soldiers joined the war unaware of the real settings, therefore, they went, meaning they were mentally unprepared for the harsh conditions, such as trench fever.
Owen’s poetry features strong anti-propaganda sentiments. Propaganda posters were premeditated in encouraging young men to join the fighting – this was achieved by the government through guilty conscience and fuelling patriotism. Owen portrays the patriotic views, which were held by much of the British population, in his poem ‘S.I.W’. The line “Father would sooner him dead than in disgrace”, shows the strong sense of nationalism as it was considered an honourable duty to fight for the country. The line is at the beginning of the stanza which is significant because it immediately creates an attitude of sympathy for the young man.
The importance of the line is it highlights the awfulness of the war – families would pressurise their sons to enlist not knowing of the atrocities they would face, for example, “wound, fever, trench-foot, shock”, thus, emphasising the human cost of warfare. Owen and poets like Siegfried Sassoon, who influenced Wilfred Owen to expose the truth of the war from their meeting in Craiglockhart hospital, were writing at a time when war poetry was emerging from the notions of national heroism and glory. For a contemporary audience, they were setting a tone for war poetry that criticises war.
Similarly, R.C Sherriff presents the theme of patriotism, through the young officer Raleigh. For instance, “he’d just got his MC and been made a captain. He looked splendid!” referring to Stanhope from Raleigh’s perspective, which suggests Stanhope is the propaganda causing Raleigh to be “Keen to get out here”. This is ironic as Raleigh sits in the dugout but in such proximity to bloodshed so the adjective “keen” seems out of place, highlighting the ignorance of the reality of war. This conveys a similar message to Owen’s as it is suggesting that young men were uninformed of the conditions they would face so were tricked into believing the war would not be brutal through patriotism.
In addition, the stage directions work well alongside the dialogue in showing the naivety of Raleigh, “boyish voice, a little bewildered, sits gingerly” which provokes a sense of sympathy from a modern audience in comparison to the pro-war majority in the 1920s. The contemporary audience may have had this lack of sympathy due to the characters being unusual war heroes – they were not representative of the ideal soldier which people had in mind– instead, the audience had to sympathise an alcoholic and a soldier pretending to be ill. Nevertheless, the play was a success and achieved to present its moral message, in the late 1920s, that “war had been pointless, a colossal waste of young lives and built on deception”. Journey’s End was considered a success due to Sherriff developing the characters to be realistic.
For example, the cook Mason, who adds the element of humour, speaks in non-standard English, such as “meself”, which shows he is from a lower class thus his function is to represent normal soldiers. However, the play is deemed as not a success, by some critics, as a result of the open ending, which does not explicitly tell whether the soldiers survive the attack. In my opinion, the play is not a positive portrayal of war, though some reviewers say it is “all the more powerful… because it comes with no agenda”. The play presents the tragedy of war as soldiers were oblivious to the horrific conditions of fighting before they went onto the battlefield due to being misled by patriotic propaganda. Publisher Ralph Hodder-Williams wrote “You have no idea what terrible offence Journey’s End has given — and terrible pain too, which is a great deal more important”, which illustrates the play was effective in refusing beliefs that glorified war and created a false image of the realities of war.
However, Amanda Phipps disagrees “Sherriff by shrouding the conflict in language of national honour and the ‘disgrace’ of not fighting seemed to represent archaic attitudes.” implies Sherriff instead intended to glorify war; I disagree as the controversial play by Sherriff subtly, through understatement, presents the horrors of war in order to oppose the “archaic attitudes” of society, which were built upon by poets like Jessie Pope. Likewise, Owen in a much more evident way, in ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ uses a tone of anger, “Obscene as cancer” to discredit the message of patriotism, thus disapproves it alongside the idea of war propaganda fuelling ambition to join the war. Both writers present the lifelong effects of war, though Owen does so to a greater extent than Sherriff. In Owen’s poems ‘Disabled’, ‘Mental Cases’, and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ the physical, as well as the mental effects of war, are explored. In ‘Disabled’, Owen depicts the contrast between the disabled man’s past and present, through the use of football, women and physical changes.
The poem, in trochaic pentameter, begins in the first stanza with an abrupt and direct description of the how brutal the injury is, “Legless, sewn short at elbow”, which seems disrespectful and dehumanising. However, the dysphemistic tone is constructive in showing a primary effect of war that society, rather than Owen, is disrespectful. Moreover, the line “before he threw away his knees”, suggests a sense of carelessness as if the soldier chose this fate, yet, this has an underlying political message of condemning war as it is questionable whether men actually had a choice in joining the war. Also, the ending of the poem, through the use of emotive language, indicates the unfortunate reality of soldiers with military injuries, serving as a reminder that though men might join the army for regretful reasons such as glory, the outcome is very different – “Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal”.
In addition, in ‘Mental Cases’, the trochaic pentameter creates a heavy and depressed rhythm which emphasises the mood of pity as Owen shows the readers that the soldiers who are physically changed due to war are dismissed and their efforts in war are not recognised. Owen explores the mental effects of war in his complex poem ‘Mental Cases’. The pronoun “These”, creates a sinister image of the men, as it strips them of their individuality, which again has a dehumanising effect suggesting all those who return from the war are left incomplete, which presents the damage war does. This idea of the soldiers being fragmented is built through “Eyeballs, brains, heads, hands” and shows them as victims of war, rather than heroes. Also, in “but who these hellish”, the use of the adjective as a noun breaks apart the flow and presents the “mental cases” as a part of hell, this creates a sense of pity as the soldiers cannot recover what they lost during the war.
Similarly, in ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, the graphic descriptions illustrate that soldiers cannot forget what they go through, for example, “Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!”, this is an abrupt change from the first stanza, in which the commas and semi-colons reflect the disjointed efforts of the men who are described using the simile “like old beggars”, this idea of the soldiers being ineffective is enforced by the semantic field “coughing, lame, blind, fatigue, deaf, tired”. Therefore, this abrupt change which speeds up the pace from “staggering” demonstrates how deadly and frequent bombing attacks were.
Moreover, the line, “In all my dreams” suggests the soldier cannot differentiate between his dreams and nightmares which builds upon the point that there is no escape for soldiers once war becomes their reality. Likewise, R.C Sherriff explores the mental effects of war through his characterisation of Stanhope, who turns to alcohol to cope with war. Hardy, an officer from another regiment says to Osborne, “Well, if you want to get the best pace out of an earwig, dip it in whiskey - makes 'em go like hell!" this is important in exposing the mindsets of soldiers in coping with all the aspects of war – the solution was alcohol. During the war, alcoholism amongst soldiers and officers was named ‘The enemy within’, this shows how destructive its effects were but also shows that the soldiers were facing so much mentally, that alcohol seemed to be the only solution.
The theme of mental illness is hinted at by Sherriff, for example, Stanhope feels distraught and guilty after Raleigh’s death. Robert Littell states “the play, set London audiences and critics to wiping tears from their eyes”, as the play ends with the tragic death of the new officer Raleigh, showing war took young lives and those who would return would never be the same due to trauma such as PTSD. When a soldier died, officers would have the melancholic duty of sending letters to families informing them of their son’s death. Arguably, this is implicit in Owen’s poem ‘S.I.W’, “Tim died smiling”, which is true in a physical sense due to the gunshot, however, relatives would not know that the real cause of the death was in fact suicide.
In conclusion, both writers explore the horrors of war through different techniques. Both had the same anti-war sentiments, which were presented in their work to create sympathy for how much soldiers go through without the knowledge of people at home. Much of the horrors soldiers experienced were kept hidden as they did not want to expose it to their families who glorified war and created heroism, meaning soldiers would not want to break the preconceived view of soldiers. Overall, the purpose was the same for both writers to present the horrors of war that had been concealed and is effectively achieved in Owen’s graphic poems and Sherriff’s poignant play.
