Journey's End (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Robert Cedric Sherriff, FSA, FRSL (6 June 1896 – 13 November 1975) [1] was an English writer best known for his play Journey's End, [2] which was based on his experiences as an army officer in the First World War. [3] He wrote several plays, many novels, and multiple screenplays, and was nominated for an Academy Award and two BAFTA awards. [4] Early life [ edit ] Producer Guy de Beaujeu said that, through the film, they want to interest younger people – particularly women – in the first world war and show them how it is “of importance and consequence to them”. When Hardy leaves, Osborne sits down to a dinner made by Mason, the officers’ cook. At this point, Raleigh, the new officer, enters. As Osborne and Raleigh talk, Raleigh reveals that he knows Stanhope from before the war. He and Stanhope went to the same high school, and Stanhope was a respected rugby captain whose father was friends with Raleigh’s father. The boys spent summers together, and Stanhope started dating Raleigh’s sister. When Stanhope went off to war, Raleigh thought constantly of him as brave captain. When Raleigh enlisted, he even ­­asked a relative to help him get assigned to Stanhope’s infantry. Hearing this, Osborne realizes he should warn Raleigh that Stanhope has changed. Next the two men talk about Raleigh’s journey through the trenches to the front lines, which he says was an unnervingly quiet experience. Osborne confirms that it is “often quiet” there, despite it being one of the most dangerous places to be stationed. Osborne says they are just “waiting for something” to happen.

I remember studying this play at secondary school, and it did not leave much of an impression. Simply another script to read until we could play football at break. Upon returning to it a little older, I have found a deep level of appreciation for the play.Edinburgh Gateway Company (1965), The Twelve Seasons of the Edinburgh Gateway Company, 1953 - 1965, St. Giles Press, Edinburgh, p. 55 Stevens, Christopher (2010). Born Brilliant: The Life of Kenneth Williams. John Murray. p.264. ISBN 978-1-84854-195-5. It is decided that Osborne and Raleigh will be the officers to go on the raid, despite the fact that Raleigh has only recently entered the war. Olivier played the part again in 1934 at a special performance for a post-war charity, with Horne and Zucco from the original cast. See "Special Performance of 'Journey's End'", The Times, 3 November 1934, p. 10 Stanhope asks if Osborne will monitor Raleigh’s letters for any bad words said about him. Osborne, who everyone calls “Uncle,” refuses. When Stanhope responds by getting very drunk, Osborne helps him get into bed and sleep it off. Everyone knows that Stanhope should take the vacation time (like Captain Hardy) and recover a bit, but Stanhope insists it’s his duty to remain near the front line.

Act three opens with Osborne asking Stanhope to send all of his materials to his wife. The two reminisce about life in England. Raleigh survives the mission, but Osborne does not. The raid successfully captures a German. When the higher commands ask Stanhope how the raid went, it’s clear that they don’t care if men died but if they captured a German who they can milk for information. I read this play for my dissertation, and I really enjoyed it. I had watched the 2017 movie adaption with Sam Clafin and Asa Butterfield before reading the play so I knew what was going to happen. If you haven't watched the movie I would highly recommend it. It's very moving. Stanhope also becomes angry at Raleigh, who did not eat with the officers that night but preferred to eat with his men. Stanhope is offended by this, and Raleigh eventually admits that he feels he cannot eat while he thinks that Osborne is dead, and his body is in No Man's Land. Stanhope is angry because Raleigh had seemed to imply that Stanhope did not care about Osborne's death because Stanhope was eating and drinking. Stanhope yells at Raleigh that he drinks to cope with the fact that Osborne died, to forget. Stanhope asks to be left alone and angrily tells Raleigh to leave. One of my favourite play writes, I tend to stay away from WW1 fictional content as I don't believe that something so horrific can be explained through fiction. WW1 fiction is always either one of two things: extremely unrealistic but fun to read or extremely unrealistic to the point where you are debating wether the Great War actually taught people anything.I don’t normally read plays because they seem to unleash a wave of high school-related memories and trying to think of quotes and line numbers and acts and basically getting myself into a tizzy. By the next afternoon preparations for the raid had been completed. A gap had been made in the barbed wire between the lines by trench mortars. The Germans, to let the British know they realized what was coming, had gone out and hung red rags on the gap, and they had zeroed in their machine guns on the gap. Stanhope tried to get the raid called off, but the colonel insisted that it was necessary. The mortars laid down a barrage of smoke shells to hide the rush of the raid. While Osborne and his party went to the German parapet and kept the way clear, Raleigh and another group of men clambered into the trench to capture a prisoner. A cover of Sherriff's "Journey's End" shows soldiers holding rifles fixed with bayonets inside a trench. Purkis, Charlotte (2016). "The mediation of constructions of pacifism in Journey's End and The Searcher, two contrasting dramatic memorials from the late 1920s". Journalism Studies. 17 (4): 502–16. doi: 10.1080/1461670X.2015.1135753.

All of the action takes place in a British officers dugout during the final year of the First World War. Captain Stanhope, respected and revered by his men, manages to function by drinking copious amounts of whisky to numb the horrors of the trenches. Osbourne, his second in command, finds solace in literature and reads from "Alice in Wonderland", as both a release from reality and a way to understand the absurdity of what is happening. Into the mix comes Raleigh, a young second lieutenant, fresh from home, who pulls strings to get in Stanhope's company, because he hero-worshiped him as the rugger team captain from school days and also because Stanhope is involved with his sister. Tensions arise because of Raleigh's naivety and hero-worship, and Stanhope's fears that he is not worthy of such praise and his worry that news of his drinking and despair might reach the ears of his intended. Stanhope also worries that young Raleigh's eagerness to join him has doomed him with the rest of them.Second Lieutenant James "Jimmy" Raleigh is a young and naive officer who joins the company. Raleigh knew Stanhope from school, where Stanhope was skipper at rugby; Raleigh refers to Stanhope as Dennis. He also has a sister whom Stanhope is dating.