Journey's End by R.C. Sheriff

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Journey's End by R.C. Sheriff R. C. Sherriff created characters that aid the audience's understanding of war through their emotions and dialogue. Each character generates an intensive atmosphere and prompts differing emotions and thoughts from the audience, expressing different feelings and reactions towards war, which all aggregate to the same thing, the fear that they are all going to die sooner than later. The play was written to make people contemplate the futility of war. World war one was a war which lead hundreds of thousands of soldiers to their death. A road where millions met their death, World War One truly was a 'Journey's End'. The play shows how an economically and socially secure era was coming to an end. Sherriff's characters make the best of the situation in which they have found themselves. Each action is displayed in accordance to their character, but they all soon realize that there is nothing noble about war. Raleigh discovers this by joining the army straight after finishing school and sees his hero torn apart, lost, and drinking. Soldiers never found the excitement and adventure that war was supposed to provide them. Instead, their dreams fell apart until there was no hope left. The language is consistently colloquial making it easier for the audience to understand. The shifts in tone express the emotions that the characters are feeling. The dramatisation is demonstrated in the play, through the dialogue, to illustrate the negativity of war. The characters use negative words such as "FIND NEG. WORDS" displaying the feelings towards this type of warfare, pointless and negative. The language used makes the audience pity the characters and forget the war. Raleigh... ... middle of paper ... ... the trenches. RC Sherriff chose an emotional way of dramatising the pointless waste of life. ‘Journey’s End’ finishes on the dramatic note, of Raleigh entombed in the pitch dark dug-out. He is shown as one more victim of the viciousness and insanity of war. This image effectively dramatises the pointless waste of life. The way in which Sherriff has dramatised the true horrors and the harsh conditions of the world war undoubtedly impressed audiences in the after math of war. Audiences today still find the play a moving realisation of the conditions of World War one. ‘Journey’s End’ was probably one of the first plays to display the true horrors of war. It shows the truth of a war that should never be glorified, and how the soldiers knew that nobody really did win the war. Works Cited Sherriff, R. C. Journey's End. New York: Brentano's, 1929.

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