R.C. Sherriffs Journeys End :: Sherriff Journeys End Essays

R.C. Sherriffs Journeys EndJourneys End was written in 1928, ten years later the end of theFirst World War. The author, R. C. Sherriff, was injured during actionin World War 1 and therefore got a ticket home. Sherriff was trying toraise specie for a new boat club and so decided to write this hornswoggle andperform it. The another(prenominal) club members refused to act out this playbecause it was too like the World War. There had been a tendency formen returning from the front not to discuss their experiences as theywere too horrific and they did not desire their womenfolk to know thetruth.So Sherriff went to the Incorporated Stage Society. They agreed,after a while of asking, to have one Sunday performance at the SavoyTheatre in London. They were to hear the play and see if it wassuccessful. It was very successful and then ran for another 600 shows.Sherriff then became a full time writer and died in November 1975.After Journeys End, many other books and plays were written and performed about World War 1, but Journeys End had been the first.In the play Sherriff uses many ways to portray the horrors of war andbecause it is set in a dugout the audience is brought right to thefront line for the entire play.The conditions are conveyed in great detail and they are introduced atthe very beginning of the play with Hardy trying to wry his sock outover a candle in a dugout. Sometimes the men could not get dry fordays and the condition known as trench foot took its name from aninfection of the feet resulting from being constantly wet.Lice affected the soldiers very badly in the trenches. The soldierswere on duty at the front for six days and then got time off to restand be de-loused. The lice would be everywhere and even if thesoldiers were clean they would be re-infested very quickly. Stanhopesaid the dugout reeked of candle-grease, and rats - and whisky andlike cess-pits.During the play it was said by Hardy that there probably is over twomillion rats in and nea r No mans land. Hardy advised Osbourne notto sleep with his legs hanging too low or the rats gnaw your boots.During the six days at the front the soldiers very seldom took theiruniform off, not even for bed, except their shoes and wet items ofclothing. They slept on beds sometimes with no bottoms, in thedugouts. They were bunk beds and had a frame and a fewer cross bars.