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

R.C. Sherriffs Journeys EndJourneys End was writ ecstasy in 1928, ten years after the end of theFirst World War. The author, R. C. Sherriff, was injured during move mentin World War 1 and in that respectfore got a tatter home. Sherriff was trying toraise money for a new boat hostel and so decided to write this put to work andperform it. The early(a) beau monde members refused to act come out of the closet this playbecause it was too like the World War. on that point had been a tendency formen returning from the drift not to prove their experiences as theywere too horrific and they did not wish their womenfolk to know thetruth.So Sherriff went to the Incorporated Stage Society. They agreed,after a while of asking, to have one sunlight performance at the SavoyTheatre in London. They were to judge the play and see if it wassuccessful. It was genuinely successful and then ran for another 600 shows.Sherriff then became a full time writer and died in November 1975.After Journe ys End, many other books and plays were written andperformed 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 inviolate play.The conditions are conveyed in great detail and they are introduced atthe very beginning of the play with Hardy trying to dry 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 abnormal 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. Stanhope utter the dugout reeked of candle-grease, and rats - and whisky andlike cess-pits.During the play it was said by Hard y that there probably is over twomillion rats in and around No mans land. Hardy advised Osbourne notto sleep with his legs hanging too scummy 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 few cross bars.