The Reality of War Exposed in Journeys End by R.C Sheriff :: English Literature

The Reality of War Exposed in Journeys End by R.C Sheriff In the play â€Å"Journey’s end† R.C Sherrif recreates the tremendous stress and fear by the men at the front in the First World War. In this essay I am going to focus on two characters, who show stress and fear. The two characters the essay will focus on are Stanhope, who is the captain and Hibbert who is an officer. A couple of background realities about the war are that it started in 1914 and a numerous countries were changed like Germany and England. This war was dissimilar to other wars that were formerly fought because they used more up to date weapons such as gas bombs and machine guns. It was estimated that nine million people died. R.C Sherriff was once himself in the World War one, as an officer in the East Surrey Regiment. He was injured in the battle of Passchendael in 1917. Journeys end is based upon his past experiences in the war - reflecting the way he and his comrades lived and fought and repeating some of its events. R.C Sherriff wrote other play, a few novels and quite a few film scripts. R.C Sherriff is best remembered for Journey’s End. R.C Sherriff reconstructs the war in Journey’s end by making the audience feel as if they are there in the war with the characters. The play is based in the officers dug out, which was where the most action took place. In order to make the audience feel as if they were there in the war R.C Sherriff made notes in the stage directions like for example â€Å"the red and green glow of German alarm rockets comes faintly through the dugout door† in this example the stage which the play would be carried out would have been pitch black and red green flashing lights and loud bangs which represents the war, it makes it as if the audience feel as if they were there. The audience would feel like they involved with the characters because of personal things they were saying, for example an argument. The dug out which is shown in most scenes of the play, where it is set is very small with only one table. The situations in the trenches would have been extremely uncomfortable for the men; this can be very stressful for the men at times. This can be noticed from certain things in the characters actions, â€Å"Captain hardy a red faced positive looking man is sitting on a box by the table, he concentrated on drying his sock over a candle flame†.